"We Who Believe in Freedom..."
Monday, January 19, 2009
Willamette University Honors Dr. King
on the National Holiday
- Putnam University Center
- 10:00am - 2:00pm
- Goudy Dining Commons
- 11:30am - 1:00pm and 5:00 - 7:00pm
Celebrate Dr. King’s national holiday and birthday. Information about the week’s events and the life of Dr. King will be available. Sign up for “Into the Streets: Community Service,” and pick up tickets for Friday evening’s event and celebrate with birthday cake.
Realizing the Dream: Continuing the Inclusive Campus Conversation
"Exploring the Experience of Privilege"
- Putnam University Center, CAT Cavern Dining Rooms 1 and 2
- 4:30pm
We all experience some form of privilege in one way or another over the course of our lifetimes. The privilege we experience may be connected to race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, religion or any number of other facets of social identity. This conversation will attempt to explore the reality of privilege in its effects on those receiving it. Join us as a community in confronting our own privilege and exploring ways to begin using privilege as a tool of social justice.
Willamette University and Salem Community Event
"I'm Not Getting On Until Jim Crow Gets Off"
Awele Makeba
- Hudson Hall, Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center
- 7:00pm
“I'm Not Getting On Until Jim Crow Gets Off” is an interactive performance and dialog on a watershed moment in U.S. History, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and its significance in advancing democracy in the United States. The oral histories on the women in the Montgomery movement are presented through a talking timeline that lets the audience reclaim this herstory in collective memory.
Different historical players' voices and stories weave the historical narrative. By interacting with the audience, Awele deconstructs (and the audience explores) the complexities of this layered her/ history and together they link it to contemporary themes and issues.
Audiences are given opportunities to collaboratively build working definitions of key concepts presented in the performance, to discuss content with their peers and with the researcher/writer/storyteller, and to interview characters about their motivations. The program concludes with the creation of a human sculpture / image theatre (by volunteers from the audience) to celebrate the role of women as leaders and foot soldiers in the freedom struggle.
Awele is an award winning and internationally known actor, emerging playwright, storyteller, recording artist and educator. She is a "truth-teller" and an artist for social change. She researches, writes, and performs hidden African American history. She invites audiences to wrestle with complex and emotionally laden issues that teach us about our common humanity, potential, and our purpose for “being” in the world. She provides opportunities for audiences to grapple with the meaning of their own lives as they make meaning of past lives. Ms. Makeba has mesmerized audiences from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC to the University of Alaska at Anchorage and she has appeared in Russia, Australia, Taiwan, France, and Canada.
Co-sponsored by the City of Salem’s Human Rights and Relations Advisory Commission, Salem Chapter of the NAACP, YWCA Racial Justice and Cultural Diversity Conference, Salem Multicultural Institute, One Community Initiative and NAACP's Salem chapter.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Realizing the Dream: Continuing the Inclusive Campus Conversation
“Not on Our Campus! Inequality at Willamette”
- Putnam University Center, CAT Cavern Dining Rooms 1 and 2
- 4:30pm
A Student-led panel discussion that explores the issues of inequality and how they relate to the Willamette campus and community.
Civil Rights Film Series: The Birth of a Nation
- Montag Den
- 7pm
The Birth of a Nation, a silent film directed by D.W. Griffith and released in 1915, is one of the most influential and controversial of American motion pictures. The film was based on Thomas Dixon's The Clansman, a novel and play. It has provoked great controversy for its treatment of white supremacy and sympathetic account of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Discussion will follow the film.
Wednesday January 21, 2009
Town Hall Meeting: The Inclusive Campus
- Putnam University Center, CAT Cavern
- 4pm
This Town Hall gathering provides opportunity for the Willamette University community to gather in conversation to share and discuss the work being done to move us towards a more inclusive campus. It is open to all people, those that have been “doing” the work, and those that are “beginning” to enter the dialogue about inclusiveness, and how to support our diverse communities. Hear from key students, faculty and administration what the driving forces were that led them to developing their initiatives, their successes and the barriers they have encountered. The Council on Social Justice and Diversity will share what work they have done towards these efforts. Come be a part of the movement forward.
Realizing the Dream: Continuing the Inclusive Campus Conversation
“What Makes You Sick? The Inequality of Healthcare”
- Putnam University Center, CAT Cavern Dining Rooms 1 and 2
- 7pm
Of the 33 million people worldwide affected with AIDS, only 31% of those in need of immediate care have access to treatment. African Americans are 80% more likely to suffer adverse health effects from industrial pollution. In the United States, "medical causes" are cited by nearly half of the bankruptcy claims. Join a campus-wide discussion to find out how race, gender, class, sexuality and international politics intersect with the current state of our healthcare system.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Willamette University Pledge
- Putnam University Center, 2nd floor
- 10:00am - 4:00pm
Celebrate Dr. King’s national holiday and birthday with an opportunity to show your support by signing the Willamette University Pledge. This pledge encourages people to make a personal commitment to adhere to a common belief that all individuals, including those in the majority and those in the minority, are valued. People will be asked to be individually as well as corporately responsible and to take action.
University Convocation
"King's Legacy: A Lyrical Look"
Mark Gonzales
- Cone Chapel, 11:30am - 12:30pm and
- Putnam University Center, CAT Cavern, 7:30pm
Mark Gonzales is a poet, educator and organizer who has traversed refugee camps in Palestine to the back alley streets of Cuba and youth prisons on LA. He has appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry, Fox News, Telmun2 while collaborating with Cornel West, Maxine Waters and others. In 2005, he was awarded a fellowship to combine his words with the Hip Hop culture into pre-collegiate curriculum. An Alaskan born Chicano, he is a testament to those who are determined to remain dignified despite a society that constantly desecrates their culture.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Willamette University Pledge
- Putnam University Center, 2nd floor
- 10:00am - 4:00pm
MLK Celebration Luncheon
Made In L.A.: Hecho En Los Angeles
- Putnam University Center, CAT Cavern
- 12:30-2:30pm
Screen the 2008 Emmy Award-winning documentary “Made in L.A.” Maria, Lupe and Maura are three Latina immigrants struggling to survive in Los Angeles sweatshops. Determined to win basic labor protections, they embark on a three year odyssey that will transform their lives. It is a story about immigration, the power of unity and the courage it takes to find your voice. In English and Spanish with bilingual subtitles. Discussion following by representatives from Basic Rights Oregon, Salem Human Rights & Relations Advisory Commission, Jobs with Justice and Farmworker Housing Development Corporation.
No Reservations Required
Free Lunches for the first 250 people
Doors Open at 12:30 pm.
WU ID Required
Into the Streets: Community Service in Salem
- Putnam University Center, Alumni Lounge
- 2:00pm - 4:30pm
In 1994 President Clinton signed the Dr. King National Holiday and Service Act, establishing the King holiday as a national day of service.
Into the Streets is program that provides multiple service opportunities throughout Salem in an effort for members of the Willamette Community to actively serve together and learn through action. Students, faculty, staff, and alumni are welcome to attend.
Sites include: Bush Park City of Salem, Center Street Sustainability Community Garden Project, Deepwood Park City of Salem, Evergreen Presbyterian Church, Easter Sealas Children's Therapy Center, Intergeneration Conversation with Seniors, SESNA Sustainable Community Garden Project, Union Gospel Mission, Willamette Valley Hospice
Visit the website to sign-up!
For more information, contact Ben Clanton: bclanton@willamette.edu, (503) 370-6807
Bernice Johnson Reagon
- Smith Auditorium
- 7:30pm
- (Doors open at 7pm)
For over four decades Bernice Johnson Reagon has been a major cultural voice for freedom and justice. An African American woman’s voice, a child of Southwest Georgia, a voice raised in song, born in the struggle against racism in America during the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s, she is a composer, song leader, scholar and producer.
Perhaps no individual today better illustrates the transformative power and instruction of traditional African American music and cultural history than Bernice Johnson Reagon, who has excelled equally in the realms of scholarship, composition, teaching and performance.
A singer and composer, Reagon recently retired after 30 years from performing with Sweet Honey In The Rock, the internationally renowned a cappella ensemble she founded in 1973. She produced most of the groups recording including the Grammy nominated Still The Same Me (Rounder Records release for younger audiences, 2001). Her work as a scholar and composer is reflected in publications and productions on African American culture and history, including: a collection of essays entitled If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song Tradition, (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2001); We’ll Under-stand It Better By and By: Pioneering African-American Gospel Composers (Smithsonian Press, 1992); We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey In The Rock: Still On the Journey (Anchor Books, 1993), and Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, Black American Freedom Songs (Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, 1980, 1994) a 2-CD anthology with booklet.
Her most recent work, “Liberty or Death” commissioned by the Muse Women Choir of Cincinnati in observance of the opening of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, had its premier performance June, 2004.
- Tickets for WU Faculty, Staff and Students will be available at the Putnam University Center, 2nd floor beginning January 12, 2009. First ticket is free. Each additional (up to 4 total) are $5. WU ID required.
- Tickets for the General Public are available beginning at 9am on January 20, 2009 Tickets are $5 each (up to 4 total).
- Contact (503) 370-6265 for ticket information.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Willamette University's MLK Celebration Stride Toward Freedom 5k Run/Walk
- Brown Field
- 9am
Come celebrate the life and spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with this annual fundraiser! Entry fee includes t-shirt and post-race snacks. Proceeds to benefit the Salem Multicultural Institute.
- Cost: $15 pre-register, $20 day of race.
- Registration available at the Putnam University Information Desk or online through Active.com.
- Day of race registration begins at 8am.