The University of Washington Bothell is honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with several events over a two week span. This is the second year that student organizers with Achieving Community Transformation (ACT) have chosen to go beyond the traditional day of service.
The variety of events – service, activism workshop, open mic night, speaker and movie showing – are more lasting and likely to appeal to a wider variety of students, says Shauniece Drayton, ACT adviser and civic engagement coordinator.
ACT is supported by the UW Bothell Office of Community-Based Learning and Research. Drayton says the events are politically relevant and offer a supplement to course work.
“We want Martin Luther King Day to be a mixture of volunteerism and education around our theme for the year – civic engagement – incorporating the community with the campus and students,” she says.
The events are aimed at students but freely open to the public. Details of the events are listed online.
A highlight will be the keynote speech by Seattle activist and writer Marissa Johnson at 5 p.m. Jan. 18 at the North Creek Events Center. She’ll be talking about a response to the election of Donald Trump.
Johnson gained publicity as one of the people who disrupted a Bernie Sanders speech at Seattle’s Westlake Park in August of 2015 to raise awareness of Black Lives Matter. She also is a co-founder of Safety Pin Box, a business intended for white people to consistently contribute to black liberation.
Civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born Jan. 15, 1929. Congress passed legislation in 1983 to observe his federal holiday on the third Monday in January. It was first celebrated in 1986.
