Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Week activities will highlight January events at Wofford College. All events listed are open to the public and are free of charge unless otherwise noted.
Please check the online calendar at calendar.wofford.edu for frequent updates. For athletics events, please go to athletics.wofford.edu.
For more information, contact Laura Corbin at [email protected] or 864-597-4180.
Monday, Jan. 9
Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Unity Week Kick-Off
Speaker: Darrin Goss ’93, president and CEO of Coastal Community Foundation
6-7 p.m., Leonard Auditorium, Main Building
Darrin Goss, a 1993 Wofford graduate and president and CEO of Coastal Community Foundation in Charleston, S.C., will be the featured speaker for this event, which kicks off MLK Unity Week at Wofford.
Tuesday, Jan. 10
MLK Unity Week: Multicultural Fair
11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Campus Life Building
The MLK Unity Week Multicultural Fair is a celebration of the wide variety of cultures represented on Wofford’s campus.
Tuesday, Jan. 10
MLK Unity Week: Donate a Meal to Total Ministries
11 a.m.-1 p.m., Burwell Dining Hall and Zach’s in Campus Life Building
Students, faculty and staff will be able to donate a meal to Total Ministries during lunch as part of MLK Unity Week.
Tuesday, Jan. 10
MLK Unity Week: “Fences” Moving Showing
7-10 p.m., NCG Spartanburg, 1985 E. Main St.
Students, faculty and staff are invited to a showing of “Fences,” the story of an African-American father’s struggles with race relations in the U.S. while trying to raise his family in the 1950s and coming to terms with the events of his life.
Wednesday, Jan. 11
MLK Unity Week: “Black Lives Matter” vs. “All Lives Matter”: Understanding the political protests in America and examining the racial inequalities
Speaker: Derrick Quarles, founder of Upstate Black Lives Matter
7 p.m., McMillan Theater, Campus Life Building
Derrick Quarles, founder of Upstate Black Lives Matter, will explore why these two phrases express disagreement with one another.
Thursday, Jan. 12
MLK Unity Week: Read. Believe. Achieve with Meeting Street Academy
10 a.m.-noon, Meeting Street Academy, 201 E. Broad St., #110
Wofford students will read to students at the Meeting Street Academy.
Thursday, Jan. 12
MLK Unity Week: Black and Blue: Building Relations between Communities of Color and Law Enforcement
4:30-5:30 p.m., Gray-Jones Room, Burwell Building
Capt. Randy Hardy, retired master patrol officer with the Spartanburg City Public Safety Department, will speak about strengthening the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. and the Organization of Latin American Students are sponsoring this event.
Saturday, Jan. 14
MLK Unity Week: Walk As One
10 a.m.-noon, First Presbyterian Church, 393 E. Main St.
Wofford students, faculty and staff will participate in the City of Spartanburg’s MLK Unity Week Walk As One event. The walk celebrates shared differences and renews our shared sense of belonging, being in a place that we, collectively, are proud to call home. Everyone is encouraged join in as we “walk as one.”
Sunday, Jan. 15
MLK Unity Week: Literary Salon and Dessert Social
6-8 p.m., The Commons, Campus Life Building
Students are invited to recite poetry, perform a song or read an excerpt from a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech to commemorate his life and legacy.
Monday, Jan. 16
Spartanburg Day of Service Opening Ceremony
8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Harley Room, Richardson Building
The opening ceremony for the Spartanburg Day of Service will be held in the Harley Room, sponsored by the United Way of the Piedmont. The United Way will collaborate with other non-profit organizations to coordinate the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. The opening ceremony includes an inspiring message from a keynote speaker.
Monday, Jan. 16
Spartanburg MLK Unity Celebration
Speaker: Joseph P. Riley Jr., former mayor of Charleston, S.C.
6:30-8:30 p.m., Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium
Joseph P. Riley Jr., former mayor of Charleston, S.C., will be the featured speaker at Spartanburg’s MLK Unity Celebration. Riley is one of the longest serving mayors in the U.S. still living; he served 10 terms starting on Dec. 15, 1975, and ending on Jan. 11, 2016. Riley’s legacy project, which he describes as the most important thing he did as mayor, is the International African American Museum. Located on the former Gadsden’s Wharf – the site where more than 40 percent of all enslaved Africans brought to this country took their first steps – the museum is a $75 million project scheduled to open in 2018. After serving as mayor, Riley returned to The Citadel, his alma mater, as a professor of American government and public policy, a position that has been endowed and named for him.
GALLERY EXHIBITIONS:
Through Monday, Jan. 30, 2017
Whetsell Exhibition: “Bodies of Light”
Martha Cloud Chapman Gallery, Campus Life Building
Meagan Burns, Class of 2017, illustrates critical perspectives on social structures in the natural worlds. In her newest work, she returns to the concepts regarding our relationship to the world around us presented by writing, such as Emerson and Thoreau, of the Transcendentalist movement and the Romantic era.
Wednesday, Jan. 4, through Tuesday, Feb. 28
Teszler and Robicesk Collections of Hungarian Paintings
Sandor Teszler Library Gallery, Sandor Teszler Library
In the late 19th century, a number of Hungarian artists left their homeland for study in Western Europe, particularly France. Returning home they continued to create works that reflected the influences and techniques learned in the West, but with a distinctive Hungarian subject matter and presentation. In 1991, the late Sandor Teszler presented to Wofford College his collection of Hungarian paintings from this period. In recent years the collection has been augmented by additional Hungarian paintings donated by Drs. Francis and Livia Robicsek of Charlotte, N.C., and members of the Robicsek family.