Friday, December 13, 2002

CCSU Inspirational Voices of Unity to sing at MLK event

Clayton State's gospel choir, Inspirational

Voices of Unity (IVU), will be performing at the University's Third Annual Martin Luther King Commemoration Day, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2003.

One of the giants of the civil rights movement, the Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, will be the keynote speaker for the 7 p.m. event. Proclaimed the "dean of the civil rights movement" at the 1997 NAACP national convention, Lowery will be speaking on "The Civil Rights Movement: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" in the University's Athletics & Fitness Center. The entire program is free and open to the public.

Eleven members of IVU, all from the Southern Crescent, will be performing on the same stage as Lowery. Included in the performers are President Nicole Connell (Peachtree City), Vice President Jenny King (Morrow) and Parliamentarian Celeste Watwood (Morrow). Other members of IVU include Danan Arnold (Riverdale), Adaeze Akukwe (Morrow), Nikki Fisher (Jonesboro), Lakesia Tyson (Atlanta), Dina Terry (Morrow), Valencia Curney (Decatur), Shemika Williams (Decatur), and Lisa Isham (Jonesboro).

The co-founder along with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Lowery has been a leader in the civil rights movement since the early 1950s, when he led the Alabama Civic Affairs Association in Mobile, Al., in a campaign to desegregate that city's buses, public accommodations and police force.

In the almost 50 years since then, Lowery has been a seminal figure in the fight for equal rights throughout the nation, serving as president and CEO of SCLC for 21 years, leading the 1965 Selma-Montgomery march to the doorstep of then-Alabama Governor George Wallace, getting arrested in Atlanta in 1968 while fighting for the rights of the city's garbage workers, serving as co-founder and chairman of the Black Leadership Forum, and meeting with national and international leaders from Nelson Mandela to Yasir Arafat.

For more information on Clayton State's MLK Commemoration Day, please call the University's Office of Diversity and Disability Services at 770-961-3719 or visit the University's MLK Commemoration Day Web site at http://a-s.clayton.edu/mlking/events.htm.