The late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is shown speaking. Image provided by Goshen College.

News Release

GOSHEN — Goshen College is set to host its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration on Jan. 13-15. This year’s theme, “Black Housing and Unsung Sheroes, Champions of Change in Elkhart County,” will focus on key issues surrounding housing and honor individuals making a difference in the local community.

The keynote speaker for the event is Cyneatha Millsaps, executive director of the Center for Community Engagement at Goshen College. Millsaps will seek to shed light on the values and ideals that characterized King’s work.

The three-day celebration on campus will include a series of public events, starting with a poetry reading by Allison Joseph at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 13, in Umble Center. Joseph is a poet who directs the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill.

Sunday, Jan. 14, will feature a sermon delivered by Millsaps at 9:30 a.m. at College Mennonite Church during the worship service.

On Monday, Jan. 15, the celebration will continue with a convocation featuring a message by Millsaps at 10 a.m. in the Church-Chapel, followed by a reception.

The afternoon will include a 2:15 p.m. documentary film screening of “What Happened at Benham West: African American Stories of Community, Displacement and Hope,” in Umble Center with a question-and-answer session and reception to follow.

The documentary collects elders’ stories of Elkhart’s predominantly African-American Benham West neighborhood and documents the process of the city’s eventual clearing of the neighborhood. Nekeisha Alayna Alexis, intercultural competence and undoing racism coordinator at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and Jamie Pitts, associate professor of Anabaptist studies and director of the Institute of Mennonite Studies at AMBS, coordinated the documentary, and Oliver Pettis of Black Lion Cinematography was the filmmaker.

The celebration is an opportunity for the community to come together, reflect on King’s legacy and engage in conversation about social justice and community empowerment.