A range of campus-wide activities promoting social justice ended with an inspirational panel discussion and musical performance.
RISD Community Honors Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Poet Nikki Giovanni
Image
RISD and Providence community members gathered for the 13th annual MLK Series celebration honoring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This year’s event, Black Feeling Black Talk: A Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King & Nikki Giovanni, featured a performance by a jazz quartet and conversations about the intersecting work of Dr. King and renowned poet and activist Nikki Giovanni.
“The goal of the MLK Committee is to imagine a moment in which our community can pause,” said Tony Johnson, who leads social equity and inclusion initiatives at RISD. “Pauses in life are necessary. We pause to examine our own values and privileges. We pause to gather, realizing that one individual alone cannot be sustained doing justice work—it requires a community.”
Image
Image
President Crystal Williams welcomed the community to the event noting how both Dr. King and Giovanni believed in the power of the arts to transform society. She read two of Giovanni’s poems: Nikki-Rosa and Rosa Parks.
“She called us to listen to perspectives that may be different from our own,” Williams said about the poet and activist. “She implored us to be radically and shamelessly ourselves.”
Giovanni was scheduled to speak at the event, but she passed away in December. The MLK Committee wanted to honor her legacy and decided to show a documentary about her work: Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. The film explores the influence she has had in the fields of social justice over the decades from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter.
Image
Image
Assistant Professor Jameka Hartley, who teaches in RISD’s History, Philosophy and the Social Sciences department, led a conversation with the audience following the film. An artist herself, Hartley reflected on meeting Giovanni in 2019 and asked the audience to think about what freedom meant to them and what it might look like in the future.
“I think about the impression she left on me about the ability to love,” one person said. “The ability to really love yourself is something internal, and you can’t explain it to anyone. But once you understand it and have ownership of it, that’s freedom in my mind.”
Image
Other events celebrating Dr. King took place across campus leading up to the Monday holiday. The RISD Museum offered free admission for visitors over the weekend and featured a variety of special programming designed to celebrate Dr. King’s vision of equality, justice and community. RISD Dining hosted a brunch featuring some of Dr. King’s favorite foods.
A message from Dr. King—which was shown in a video clip at the Black Feeling Black Talk event—rang true throughout the celebrations: “Part of your life’s blueprint should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth. Always feel that your life is significant.”
Kaylee Pugliese / Images by Thad Russell
January 22, 2025
Related Stories
RISD’s 11th annual MLK Series keynote speaker addresses public art and the importance of creating space for Black artists.
A fall studio focuses on the many forms of printed matter artists create to support social justice causes and political protest.