{"id":1079,"date":"2019-07-17T18:19:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T18:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wcsu.wpengine.com\/news-archives\/westconncelebrateslegacyofmlk\/"},"modified":"2019-07-17T18:19:11","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T18:19:11","slug":"westconncelebrateslegacyofmlk","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/westconncelebrateslegacyofmlk\/","title":{"rendered":"WestConn celebrates legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">&#013;<\/p>\n<div id=\"sharingTools\"><!-- #include virtual=\"\/include\/sharingtools.inc\" --><\/div>\n<p>&#013;<\/p>\n<div id=\"breadcrumb\"><!-- #include virtual=\"\/include\/breadcrumb.inc\" --><\/div>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n    &#013;<\/p>\n<p><strong>DANBURY, CONN. <\/strong>\u2014  The public is invited to join in as Western Connecticut State University celebrates the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 14.<\/p>\n<p>&#013;<\/p>\n<p>Featured at the celebration will be actor, writer and activist Ruby Dee, and a staging of \u201cThe People of Clarendon County,\u201d a short play by Ossie Davis, Dee\u2019s late husband. The 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration will be free and open to the public. It will be held in Ives Concert Hall in White Hall on the university\u2019s Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury, and is also sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim, The News-Times, Danbury Hospital, the Greater Danbury NAACP, the Housatonic Valley Coalition Against Substance Abuse, Connecticut Light &amp; Power and the Arnhold Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>&#013;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDr. King\u2019s work and dedication were, without question, the core of equal rights and opportunities that all people enjoy today,\u201d said WestConn\u2019s Director of Multicultural Affairs and Affirmative Action Dr. Bryan Samuel. \u201cHis work and leadership touched a nation. Dr. King imparted to us important lessons, for instance, that violence couldn\u2019t be met with violence. It was for all those things that King stood for that we decided to present \u2018The People of Clarendon County.\u2019 It\u2019s educational and entertaining and provides meaningful insight into the issue of racism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#013;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe People of Clarendon County\u201d centers on African-American parents in 1950s South Carolina who fight for racial equality in the school system by legally challenging segregation. Davis wrote the play in celebration of the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to outlaw school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education.<\/p>\n<p>&#013;<\/p>\n<p>Dee and her husband both were recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Screen Actors Guild. Davis, an award-winning actor, director and producer, was also a civil rights activist who worked closely with King. Davis and Dee were involved in organizing the 1963 civil rights March on Washington, and Davis spoke at King\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n<p>&#013;<\/p>\n<p>For more information, call (203) 837-8278.<br \/>&#013;<br \/>\n \u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>&#013;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><em>Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England\u2019s best small private universities.<br \/><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#013;<\/p>\n<p \/>&#013;<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0\">\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>&#013;<\/p>\n<div id=\"facebookShare\"><!-- #include virtual=\"\/include\/facebookshare.inc\" --><\/div>\n<p>&#013;\n        <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#013; &#013; &#013; &#013; DANBURY, CONN. \u2014 The public is invited to join in as Western Connecticut State University celebrates the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 14. &#013; Featured at the celebration will &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1079","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}