Maria Hinojosa, host of National Public Radio’s Latino USA and PBS’s America By The Numbers, will deliver the University’s 2018 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Address on Friday, January 19.
The four-time Emmy Award winner will speak at 6 p.m. in Strong Auditorium on the River Campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Prior to her speech, Hinojosa will meet with University student leaders in the Douglass Leadership House. An invitation-only reception will follow.
The MLK Commemorative Address was instituted in 2001 to promote diversity, freedom, civil rights, and social justice. It’s co-sponsored by the Office of the President and the Office of Minority Student Affairs.
Past speakers include civil rights activists Rev. Joseph Lowery, Mary Frances Berry, Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson, and Andrew Young; authors and educators Joy DeGruy, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Nikki Giovanni; former New Orleans mayor Marc Morial; and Martin Luther King III, son of the late civil rights activist.
Last fall, the Presidential Commission on Race and Diversity recommended that Martin Luther King Jr. Day become a University holiday beginning in 2018, to signal institutional support for the ideals of diversity and equality expressed in the civil rights movement. At the first meeting of the Presidential Diversity Council in December 2016, members voted unanimously to support the move.
