Lenoir-Rhyne to celebrate MLK Day with speaker, march

Press Release

Lenoir-Rhyne University

Lenoir-Rhyne University will honor the legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at its annual Martin Luther King Celebration on Monday, January 19 at 10 a.m. in the P.E. Monroe Auditorium. Sponsored by the LRU Office of Multicultural Affairs, the program will feature guest speaker, Jesmyn Ward. Ward is an associate professor of English at Tulane University and award winning American novelist.

Born and raised in DeLisle, Mississippi, Ward’s writings depict the lives of African Americans growing up in the south, struggling with poverty and natural disaster. She will discuss the impact Dr. King made during his lifetime as well as share some of her own personal experiences including the loss of her brother and survival of Hurricane Katrina.

Immediately following the program, attendees are invited to participate in the Martin Luther King Day March being sponsored by the Hickory Chapter of the NAACP. The march will begin at P.E. Monroe Auditorium and end in the Ridgeview Community of Hickory.

Ward is also scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. in Belk Centrum as part of Lenoir-Rhyne University’s Visiting Writers Series. Doors will open at 6:15 p.m. and no tickets or reservations are required.

Ward is the author of three widely acclaimed novels. Her first novel, Where the Line Bleeds, was published in 2008 and a year later, received a Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) Honor Award. For her second novel, Salvage the Bones, she received the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction and a 2012 Alex Award. Her latest book, published in 2013, is a memoir titled Men We Reaped and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Prior to her appointment at Tulane, Ward served as an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of South Alabama. She was writer in residence at the University of Mississippi for the 2010-2011 academic year and, from 2008-2010, a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Ward received her Masters of Fine Arts degree in 2005 from the University of Michigan where she won five Hopwood Awards for her fiction, essays, and drama.

Events are free and open to the LR campus as well as the community. For more information, contact Emma Sellers, Director of Multicultural Affairs at Emma.Sellers@lr.edu or (828) 328-7288.

About Lenoir-Rhyne University:
Lenoir-Rhyne University was founded in 1891 and is a private, coeducational university with its primary campus in Hickory, N.C. Academic programs include more than 50 undergraduate majors and 24 graduate programs, the Center for Graduate Studies of Asheville, N.C., the Center for Graduate Studies of Columbia, S.C., and the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C. Today, more than 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled across all campuses. Lenoir-Rhyne is affiliated with the N.C. Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and welcomes students from all religious backgrounds. The website is www.lr.edu.