Three Participants in MLK's Poor People's Campaign Talk About Its Impact on Today's Movement for Social Justice, Feb. 12
February 6, 2018
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
The University of Baltimore's semester-long conversation about the history and impact of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign will continue on Monday, Feb. 12, when three direct participants in the campaign—UB's Lenneal Henderson, the Center for Emerging Media's Marc Steiner, and Robert Houston, whose first professional assignment was to photograph the campaign, which led to a landmark in photographic journalism—will consider the Poor People's Campaign as an occurrence of its time as well as a harbinger of the re-emergent economic activism of recent years. The session will take place beginning at 5:30 p.m. in UB's Town Hall, located in the H. Mebane Turner Learning Commons, 1415 Maryland Ave. This event, as are all events in UB's semester-long examination at King's legacy and its impact on social justice today, is free and open to the public.
Joshua Clark Davis, assistant professor in the Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies and author of Head Shops to Whole Foods, will update one thread of the economic initiative to broaden participation through the efforts of cooperatives. Elizabeth M. Nix, associate professor in the Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies and a nationally recognized expert on Baltimore's unrest following King's murder in 1968, will serve as interlocutor for this and the subsequent session. Nix co-edited an anthology entitled Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth in an American City and co-wrote Introduction to Public History: Interpreting the Past, Engaging Audiences.
Steiner has been a fixture in Baltimore media and public affairs for 25 years, beginning with his radio show on WJHU, which continued on WYPR and WEAA. He has become one of the most recognized voices in Maryland and has gained national acclaim for his insightful style of interviewing. As president of the Center for Emerging Media, he won a Peabody Award, the most distinguished award in broadcast media, for the series "Just Words."
After a 25-year teaching career at UB, Henderson now holds the title of Emeritus Distinguished University Professor, the University's highest professorial designation. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a position to which only the most august scholars in public affairs and government and nonprofit executives are chosen. In addition to his academic achievements, he is a published poet and noted actor, reprising historical roles including Thurgood Marshall, W. E. B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, and Howard Thurman. He is a board member of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, past chairman of the Maryland Humanities Council, and past chair or board member for numerous public interest commissions and foundations.
Houston is a nationally celebrated Baltimore-based photographer. His photographic portfolio for Life Magazine forms the heart of the Smithsonian's "City of Hope" exhibition, based in Resurrection City, built on the National Mall in May, 1968 as a physical manifestation of the Poor People's Campaign. He has taught numerous symposia on the art and practice of photography.
This event is supported by a grant from Maryland Humanities and the Randolph B. Rosencrantz Fund.
Learn more about UB's "Poor People's Campaign: An Interdisciplinary Study of the 1968 Effort to Gain Economic Justice for Poor People in the United States."