Yolanda King to give Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture

King

By Franklin Crawford

Actress and public speaker Yolanda King will return to campus to deliver the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture on Tuesday, Feb. 15, at 5 p.m. in Sage Chapel.

King, first-born daughter of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., appeared on campus in the role of Mama in A Raisin in the Sun, staged this fall at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.

The topic of her commemorative talk will be "Open My Eyes, Open My Soul: Discovering the Power of Diversity." The title is taken, in part, from a recently published anthology that King co-edited with Elodia Tate.

Kenneth Clarke, director of Cornell United Religious Work (CURW), said King was selected to speak by the university's King Commemoration Committee last spring.

"We felt she would be an ideal person to provide a perspective, as Dr. King's daughter and inheritor of his legacy, that would resonate with the campus as well as the local community," said Clarke, who met King when she was invited to speak at Penn State University's King Commemoration in 1998. "She is an eloquent speaker."

Indeed, King is a much-sought-after motivational speaker and teacher. She has addressed Fortune 500 companies and the United Nations as well as religious, civic and educational groups in the United States and abroad. She is founder and CEO of Higher Ground Productions, a California-based organization dedicated to social change and world peace by advocating diversity and unity. The company promotes its mission through theatrical productions, lecture-performances, television, film, radio talk shows, literature, books and electronic media.

King received a bachelor's degree in theater and African-American studies from Smith College, and a master's degree in theater from New York University. She serves on the board of directors of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change and was the founding director of the King Center's cultural affairs program. She is a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Partnership Council of Habitat for Humanity, a sponsor of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and holds a lifetime membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Open My Eyes, Open My Soul: Celebrating Our Common Humanity is a collection of stories and poems by celebrities, human rights advocates and writers from all walks of life, including Maya Angelou, Stevie Wonder, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Muhammad Ali.

King's visit is sponsored by CURW, the Vice Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development, Dean of Students, Minority Educational Affairs, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Africana Studies and Research Center, the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy, the Public Service Center, Alice Cook House, Minority Affairs in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and the student group ALANA (African Latino Asian Native American Students Programming Board).