Civil rights activist Julian Bond to speak at Martin Luther King observance | Press Releases

Julian Bond, a member of the Advisory Board of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change and an icon of the Civil Rights Movement, will speak on Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 3 p.m. in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. Bond, a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the American University in Washington, D.C. and a member of the history faculty at the University of Virginia, will receive the LaFarge Award for his lifelong pursuit of civil rights, economic justice and peace.

Also, Jane Elliot, developer of the discrimination exercise "Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes," will speak on Tuesday, Jan. 28, at 3:15 p.m. in the Quick Center. The experiment, in which participants are labeled inferior or superior based on the color of their eyes, began in a third-grade classroom in all-white Riceville, Iowa, shortly after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In addition to the lectures, which highlight a three-day celebration marking Dr. King's birthday, there will be several other events, including a cultural collage which will allow student cultural groups to celebrate and rejoice in their culture; a student-written and -produced theater piece written and directed by Nathan Nunez '97, Heather Marin '97 and English Professor Ben Halm which will be performed on Thursday, Jan. 30, at 1:30 p.m. in the Barone Campus Center lobby; and an "Adopt-a-School" program in which Fairfield students will visit third- and fourth-graders at the Elias Howe elementary school in Bridgeport to produce artwork on the meaning of culture.

For more information about the King observance, call Co-Chair Charissa Almonte, ext. 3868.