The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Center (King Center) in Atlanta announced Friday that ASU President Gwendolyn E. Boyd will be the keynote speaker at The King Center’s 47th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Service.
The announcement was made by the chief executive officer of The King Center, the Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of the slain civil right’s hero.
The ASU President will deliver the keynote address to commemorate both Dr. King’s 86th birthday anniversary and the 30th nationwide observance of the King Holiday. Boyd’s address will be held at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church Horizon Sanctuary on Monday, January 19, 2015, beginning at 10 a.m.
“We are honored to have ASU president Gwendolyn Boyd deliver the keynote address at our annual commemorative service,” said King in announcing Dr. Boyd’s participation.
Bernice King said that Dr. Boyd’s willingness to serve as the keynote speaker for the King Center’s nationwide event represents a continuation of the relationship between the King family and Alabama State University, which was so crucial to the success of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
“Many people overlook the inseparable connection between my family and Alabama State University. My father used the University’s library while completing the dissertation requirements for the Ph.D. at Boston University in 1954. Almost two years later, the University’s president, Dr. Harper Councill Trenholm, provided a safe haven for my father in the official residence on the campus after the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church parsonage was bombed during the early phase of the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” Bernice King added. “Beyond the historical linkage, however, Dr. Boyd is also an engaging speaker with oratorical abilities that are surpassed only by her passion for social justice and equality.”
Other program participants include a host of federal, state and elected officials, social change advocates, community leaders and public figures from the arts, education and the faith community. The program is televised locally every year by Fox5 Atlanta.
Excerpt From Bernice King’s News Release
“Dr. Boyd’s speech at the annual commemorative service will be steeped in both history and irony as the nation prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which was landmark legislation that expanded the national electorate during a time when Blacks were systematically denied access to the ballot. The events in Alabama, and particularly, the cities of Selma and Montgomery (the location of Alabama State University), are forever etched in America’s memory because they exposed Dixie’s dastardly disregard of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution…”
Boyd’s Background
In addition to many diverse honors and accolades, Dr. Gwendolyn E. Boyd has served as the president of Alabama State University since February (and is ASU’s first female president in its 147 year history); is a board member of the President of the United State’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African-Americans, and served as the 22nd National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She is an ordained itinerant elder in the AME Church, was awarded the Doctor of Ministry and Master’s degrees from Howard University, as well as is the first female African-American to earn a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Yale University. She graduated summa cum laude from Alabama State University where she also was crowned Miss ASU. Before coming to ASU as its president, Dr. Boyd was in a leadership position with the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University for over 33 years.
The King Holiday
The King Center’s Founder, Coretta Scott King, organized the first religious service commemorating Dr. King’s birthday in 1969 with the intention that it would become an annual tradition and the spiritual centerpiece of future observances of Dr. King’s birthday.
