University Library News

Visit https://dei.gsu.edu/info/mlk for information about MLK Jr. Day events on campus and in the community.

Monday, January 16, 2023, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Although Dr. King was born on January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed on the third Monday in January. Meant to be “a day on, not a day off,” this year’s celebration will mark the 37th anniversary of the establishment of this day of service as a federal holiday.

Georgia State University is hosting multiple events in commemoration of Dr. King, beginning on January 16 and extending into February, which is Black History Month. Important events include the following (more information and any registration/RSVP information at each link):

• 40th Annual MLK Day of Service: A Day On, Not a Day Off: Monday, January 16, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm, GSU Student Center, 55 Gilmer Street
• It Was All a Dream: MLK Vision Board Party: Tuesday, January 17, 3:00 – 5:00 pm, Student Center East Ballroom
• MLK on Leadership: A Lunch & Learn Experience: Wednesday, January 18, 11:30 am, Dahlberg Hall, Veterans Memorial Hall
• Community Connections: Womxn of Color: Wednesday, January 18, 3:00 – 5:00 pm, Student Center East, Room 206
• 2023 MLK Commemoration with Keynote by India.Arie: Thursday, January 19, 4:00 – 6:00 pm, Student Center East Ballroom
• 2023 Summit on Culture: Friday, January 20, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm, Student Center East
• Pop Talks: Wednesday bi-weekly, beginning on Wednesday, January 25, 12:15 pm – 1:30 pm, Student Center East, Room 206
• Cultures, Communities & Inclusion Night at the Georgia State Women’s Basketball Game: Thursday, January 26, 6:00 – 9:30 pm, Georgia State Convocation Center, 455 Capital Ave. SE
• 2023 Social Justice Summit: Not All Superheroes Wear Capes: Thursday, February 2 and Friday, February 2 and 3, beginning at 4:00 pm on February 2, Student Center East
• 2023 Groundbreaker Lecture, Jelani Cobb: Wednesday, February 8, 2023, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm, Student Center East, State Ballroom
• 2023 Mario Bennekin Black History Symposium, with Keynote Speaker Eshe Sherley: Symposium, Monday, February 20 through Friday, February 24; Keynote, February 20, 3:00 pm, Dunwoody Campus Auditorium (more information to come at that link)

For more information about these events and other local and community events, please visit GSU’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’s MLK Commemoration Page at http://dei.gsu.edu/info/mlk.

The GSU Library has many resources to help you learn more about Dr. King, the Civil Rights Movement, and Black activism today. Here is a list of some (but not all! there are more!) newly acquired resources on these topics:

About Dr. King

• Dan Abrams and Fred D. Gray with David Fisher, Alabama v. King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Criminal Trial That Launched the Civil Rights Movement (2022)
• Stephen Kendrick and Paul Kendrick, Nine Days: The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life and Win the 1960 Election (2021)
• Andrew J. Douglas and Jared A. Loggins, Prophet of Discontent: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Critique of Racial Capitalism (2021)
• Susannah Heschel, “A Friendship in the Prophetic Tradition: Abrahama Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King,” essay in Lawrence Fine, Friendship in Jewish History, Religion, and Culture (2021)

About the Civil Rights Movement

• Daniel T. Fleming, Living the Dream: The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day (2022)
• Victoria W. Wolcott, Living in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement (2022)
• Anna Malaika Tubbs, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation (2021)
• Davis W. Houck, Black Bodies in the River: Searching for Freedom Summer (2022)
• Thomas E. Ricks, Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968 (2022)
• Rolundus Rice, Hosea Williams: A Lifetime of Defiance and Protest (2021; foreword by Andrew Young)
• V. P. Franklin, The Young Crusaders: The Untold Story of the Children and Teenagers Who Galvanized the Civil Rights Movement (2021)
• Kate Clifford Larson, Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer (2021)

Black Activism Today

• Randal Maurice Jelks, Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy in Black America (2022)
• Deva R. Woodly, Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements (2022)
• Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, His Name Is George Floyd (2022)
• Arthur Romano, Racial Justice and Nonviolence Education: Building the Beloved Community, One Block at a Time (2022)
• Sami Schalk, Black Disability Politics (2022)
• Grant Farred, Only a Black Athlete Can Save Us Now (2022)
• Korie L. Edwards, Smart Suits, Tattered Boots: Black Ministers Mobilizing the Black Church in the Twenty-First Century (2022)
• Jelani Cobb and David Remnick, The Matter of Black Lives: Writing from the New Yorker (2021)
• William R. Ferris, I Am a Man: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1970 (2021; foreword by Lonnie G. Bunch III)