On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. uttered four words to a crowd of more than 250,000 people: “I have a dream.”
The speech has come to define King’s fight for civil rights and the Civil Rights movement as a whole. More than 50 years later, The University of Alabama and other partners will honor King’s legacy with a series of events over the course of MLK weekend.
The headline event, the Martin Luther King Jr. “Realizing the Dream” Program, will feature John Legend, a nine-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and philanthropist. Legend will be speaking and performing at Moody Music Building on Sunday.
This series, put on by the University, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Stillman College, will be celebrating its 25th anniversary with special guests and events from Thursday to Monday.
The first event will be the Legacy Awards Banquet, which will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Friday. The banquet will feature multiple speakers and will recognize several honorees for various accomplishments in work that is reflective of King’s legacy.
The series has been successful and growing in the 25 years since it was first started. It has evolved from a single concert into a thriving event, including several activities and performances that attract sizable crowds in honor of King.
“The concert is most always held in Moody Hall, which seats about 936 people, and it is almost always sold out,” Sammory Pruitt, vice president for Community Affairs, said. “There is a banquet that takes place on the Friday before the concert called the ‘Legacy Banquet’… and that is normally sold out as well.”
The “Realizing the Dream” series has seen faces such as Maya Angelou, James Earl Jones and the Rev. Al Green as it brings together all ages in the community for musical performances, poetry readings and orations that honor and pay tribute to the legacy of King and to those who are actively contributing to it.
Edward Mullins, retired University of Alabama journalism professor, has worked closely with the “Realizing the Dream” committee for several years.
“These annual events memorialize the life and principles of peace and racial justice championed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Mullins said.
The “Realizing the Dream” program will take place at 7:30 on Sunday, Jan. 19, in the Moody Music Concert Hall.
