As the world’s most prominent Civil Rights leader of all time, Martin Luther King Jr. needs no introduction. The reverend’s birthday is celebrated as a national holiday on Monday, Jan. 14, 2024, and many Queens venues plan to host commemorations.
Please read on.
Queens College, which organizes a big event every year, will present MLK Jr. Celebration of Life at LeFrak Concert Hall (65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing) on Jan. 14 at 3 pm. Guest speakers, a performance by the Queens College Treble Chorus, and the premiere of the latest episode in the college’s docuseries on MLK’s connection to the CUNY school are on tap.
Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO and Executive Director of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, will deliver the keynote address. She won Queens College’s 2024 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award
At noon, an admissions resource fair will take place in the Dining Hall so prospective students can learn about admissions procedures, degree programs, and financial aid options.
Over in Western Queens, the Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave.) will organize Martin Luther King Jr. Family Day on Jan. 14 from 2 pm to 5 pm. Geared for children and free with museum admission, the fun includes a talk, tour, scavenger hunt, media-making, and activities focused on MLK’s legacy.
The following day, Jan. 15, MoMI will screen King: A Filmed Record… Montgomery to Memphis at 1 pm.
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Sidney Lumet, this 1970 film follows MLK from 1955 to 1968, documenting his rise from regional activist to world-renowned Civil Rights leader. It includes fare footage of his speeches, protests, and arrests interspersed with scenes of other high-profile supporters and opponents of the cause, punctuated by testimonials by some Hollywood stars.
Also on Jan. 15, but back in Flushing, Queens Botanical Garden (43-50 Main St.) will offer a six-hour MLK Day Kids Program, starting at 9 am. Caregivers drop off youngsters for mostly outdoors activities, including planting, playing, and learning in nature.
Editor’s note: Queens College has a special link to MLK, as he gave a powerful speech about peaceful disobedience there on May 13, 1965. During this 40-minute address, he honored Andrew Goodman, who had been murdered by Ku Klux Klan members in Mississippi less than a year earlier. The 20-year-old rising junior had ventured south to register African American voters as part of the Freedom Summer Project of 1964. Reverend King recognized Goodman’s sacrifice, opining that his activism helped galvanize support for the Voting Rights Acts of 1965 and avowing that his “creative witness will certainly live for generations yet unborn” and “his death was not in vain.”
Image: Library of Congress