Centenary Celebrates King Legacy With Dream Week Activities

Come witness history when we will watch the inauguration of the country's first African-American President, Barrack Obama followed by his inauguration speech. Immediately following the speech, Centenary College Attaway Scholar in Civic Culture, A.P. Tureaud Jr., son of famous civil rights attorney, A.P. Tureaud Sr., will speak about his experiences during Convocation at 12 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

As a young man, Tureaud Jr. applied to Louisiana State University in 1953 but was rejected. His father filed suit against the college, with the district court finding for the plaintiff. Twenty —one lawyers for LSU reviewed the case and appealed the decision. The Appeals Court overturned the lower court on the technicality that only one judge heard the case and LSU promptly kicked Tureaud Jr. out of school. His father requested that the Supreme Court forbid the college from acting until the court can hear the case, which they did. However his son had refused to return to LSU and continued to study at Xavier University.

A screening of the documentary "Journey for Justice: The A.P. Tureaud Story" about the late civil-rights attorney will be shown. The screening is free and open to the public, and co-sponsored by the Centenary Film Society. A facilitated discussion with A.P. Thureaud Jr. follows.

As the local attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., and intimate of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Tureaud handled practically all the desegregation and other civil rights cases filed in Louisiana from the early 1940s through the 1960s.

Among the many civil rights cases, Tureaud successfully obtained equal pay for Louisiana's black teachers and the admission of qualified students — regardless of color — to state-supported professional, graduate and undergraduate schools. He fought to end segregation on city buses in Louisiana, and he successfully defended one of the first sit-in cases to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Stories from the Struggle in Shreveport: A Civil Rights Panel will discuss their first hand experiences working directly with Martin Luther King, Jr. or working for civil rights issues in Louisiana. They will also address civil rights issues today—how far have we come, and where do we go from here.

The panel discussion is free and open to the public.

Find out more and register for the MLK Service Day

Centenary students, staff, faculty, and alumni will have the opportunity to take place in the school's first MLK Service Day. The service project will consist of participants working at two local public schools to spruce up the school campuses through painting, cleaning, and other minor improvements.

Registration is free with refreshments, lunch, and transportation provided. The day will begin at 8 a.m. Pre-registered participants will check in at the Whited Room in Bynum Commons and transported to the school sites, and return to the Centenary Campus at 1 p.m.

The Service Day is co-sponsored by the Office of Community, Career Services, Intercultural Engagement, Alumni Relations, Christian Leadership Center, Student Life, and the Centenary Education Department.

CITIZEN KING is a two-hour documentary from acclaimed filmmakers Orlando Bagwell and Noland Walker, and explores the last five years in the life of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Personal recollections and eyewitness accounts of friends, movement associates, journalists, law enforcement officers, and historians illuminate this little-known chapter in the story of America's most influential moral leader in the 20th century.

Civil Rights: Then and Now. A panel discussion with members of the Washington, D.C. based theater group, Pin Points Theater. The event is free and open to the public.

Beginning as a writers' workshop called "Pen Points" in 1978, the writers' workshop evolved into Pin Points Theatre in 1980. It can be best described as a community theater company that travels internationally; creating its plays and workshops in impoverished Washington D.C. communities then presenting them to schools, businesses, government agencies and theaters throughout the local area, the United States, and so far, in Asia (Guam, Korea, Japan, and Singapore), Canada, and Germany.

The Pin Points Theater troupe will perform, "The Meeting." The performance is free and open to the public.

What would have happened if Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had met before they were assassinated, just three years apart? This intriguing idea is the subject of the critically acclaimed play, "THE MEETING," a powerful drama about the lives, philosophies, and times of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Written by Jeff Stetson, "THE MEETING" received a Louis B. Mayer Award, eight NAACP Theater Awards, and six New York AUDELCO nominations. It has been produced throughout Asia, Europe and the United States.

Print out your copy of the MLK Quiz and answer the questions correctly for a chance at prizes.