Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation 2024
Please join the CU Boulder community as it honors and reflects on Dr. King's legacy, taking current contexts into consideration. The Center for African and African American Studies, the Leeds School of Business and the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are sponsoring this signature campus event.
Thanks to the CU students, staff, babyֱapp and babyֱapp citizens who participted in the campus's inaugural Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation 2024.
Speakers will include Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Russell L. Moore, Theatre and Dance Associate Professor Donna Mejia, Ethnic Studies Professor and CAAAS Founder and Faculty Director Reiland Rabaka, and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion David Humphrey.
Meet Keynote Speaker Tabatha Jones Jolivet
Tabatha L. Jones Jolivet, PhD, (she/her) is an associate professor in the School of Behavioral and Applied Sciences at Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles. She is an educator, minister and abolitionist organizer who specializes in the intersectional study of race, racism, resistance and social movements; rehumanizing and abolitionist pedagogies; spirituality and sacred resistance; and building antiracist institutions and societies.
Her talk will address who Dr. King was, what forces shaped his work and his murder, how the community can apply the civil rights leader’s work and ministry with a contemporary context, what we can draw from his vision and ministry to address present situations, and the role that intergenerational trauma plays in helping the campus to actualize Dr. King’s vision for a “beloved community.” Read full biography
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Re)membered
Since his murder on April 4, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s memory and contributions have been appropriated and reconstituted to ensure relatability to mass audiences. CU Boulder’s 2024 convocation invites us to radically (re)member the celebrated civil rights leader, taking current cultural, social and political contexts into consideration. It requires us to wrestle with the "historical" Dr. King to understand who he was and to reflect resonsably on the implications of his legacy for our contemporary situation. The theme of this year’s convocation – from rest to revolution – signifies the dialectical relationship between the self and oppressive systems, recognizing that liberation work must start from within.
Additional Readings &Resources
Regional Martin Luther King Jr. Day Events
- Boulder County Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2024: Fanning the Flames of the Dream, featuring CU Boulder professor Reiland Rabaka, founder and director of CU Boulder's Center for African and African American Studies (the CAAAS), 3 p.m., Jan. 14, Boulder Jewish Community Center in Boulder and 10 a.m. Jan. 15, Silver Creek High School in Longmont. Events are free and open to the public.
- , the only one of its kind in the country and celebrating its 40th anniversary, Jan. 15, Civic Center Park in downtown Denver, noon to 1 p.m.