Civil Rights Museum announces 'MLK50' commemoration

Taking its title from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final book, the National Civil Rights Museum next month will launch an ambitious yearlong commemoration of the life and legacy of the man who was “the greatest peacemaker in our nation,” in the words of museum president Terri Lee Freeman.

A blend of reflection, education and activism, the “MLK50: Where Do We Go from Here” commemoration will culminate in an April 4, 2018, public "storytellers" evening marking the 50th anniversary of King’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel, the building that became the foundation of the museum, which opened in 1991. Freeman said she hopes the event will be nationally televised and feature a number of celebrities in addition to celebrated scholars and civil rights leaders.

Museum officials said the “MLK50” strategies — which include a syllabus to be provided to schools, clergy-led “teach-ins,” an ongoing museum-hosted website featuring new interpretations of King’s work by scholars, and so on — are intended to emphasize the “visionary” and provocative King who emerged after such civil rights successes of legislation and litigation as public and school desegregation and the Voting Rights Act.

“We want to remind folks that the civil rights movement is not just historic, it didn’t die when King died,” said Faith Morris, the museum’s chief marketing and external affairs officer.

"He was beyond 'the dream' at this point," Morris said of King in 1967, the year the human rights advocate published “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" (which Freeman calls "prophetic"), and 1968, when King made his first visit to Memphis in support of striking sanitation workers.

"He was not just talking about nonviolence," she said. "He was very focused on jobs and economic opportunity and war. ‘Mass incarceration’ — that term wasn’t used, but that’s what he described: people being jailed for very little reason, families being torn apart. It’s amazing how visionary this man was, how attuned he was to the issues that still affect this country."

six : 01 - Martin Luther King's Last 32 Hours

Budgeted to add about $2 million to the museum's usual annual operating costs of about $6 million, an increase that will require additional fundraising, the "MLK50" commemoration is being planned with the assistance of several new committees, including a "National Clergy Leadership Team" headed by Dr. Alvin O'Neal Jackson, former pastor of such significant congregations as Park Avenue Christian Church in New York and Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, and a "Scholars Committee" headed by Dr. Hasan Jeffries of Ohio State University.

Some elements of the yearlong commemoration will include:

• The "MLK50 Syllabus," a mix of curriculum, resources and recommended reading being developed by the scholars committee, for uses in classrooms and elsewhere.
• "Teach-ins" to help churches around the country organize and focus on "social justice" ministries to "sustain a movement toward the moral center with which Dr. King gave his life."
• A new digital platform at www.MLK50.civilrightsmuseum.org to host and track conversations around King's legacy and provide information about "MLK50" events.
• A new exhibit about King's legacy.

In addition, numerous public seminars, workshops and other events will be held. Freeman said almost every event will be free and public.

She said the "MLK50" commemoration was occurring at a time that many believe is particularly stressful for peace-and-justice and human rights advocates.

"Through the best and the worst times, we have to stay watchful," Freeman said. "We have to be active, and I think that is why we are asking communities of influence — our faith community, and our scholars — to provoke people in ways that will make them question some of their thinking. We really need to get our citizenry to see that their engagement in this overall civic process is crucial. You hear people say, 'Oh, it doesn't really matter what I do.' Well, it does matter."