The daylong festivities commemorating Dr. King will kick-off at noon. Refreshments will be served. The event is free and open to the public.
The event will be hosted by actor Roger Guenveur Smith (“Oz,” “Malcolm X,” “American Gangster”) and Black Entertainment Television personality April Sutton.
Lawson spent three years as a Methodist missionary in India where he was deeply influenced by the philosophy and techniques of non violent resistance. He introduced these principles to many future leaders of the civil rights movement.
In 1968, at Lawson’s request, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to striking sanitation workers on the day before his assassination.
The reverend moved to Los Angeles in 1974 to lead Holman United Methodist Church, where he served as pastor for 25 years before retiring in 1999.
In addition to Lawson’s keynote address, Culver City’s King Day celebration will include a screening of the critically acclaimed documentary “Realizing the Dream, Living the Legacy.”
Freedom Riders, many who were students who challenged the South’s Jim Crow segregation laws in the 1960s, will hold a panel discussion on the struggle for racial equality. Actor Gerald Rivers will deliver a recitation of King’s “I have a Dream” speech and UCLA African-American Studies professor Dr. Darnell Hunt will speak on the significance and the historical impact of King and the civil rights movement.
Students from the Culver City Unified School District will commemorate the city’s King Day celebration with a reading of essays on the topic of “Realizing the Dream, Living the Legacy.”
Art from CCUSD students will also be on display at the celebration. The festival committee held an art contest and a speech contest and the winners will attended the celebration.
Second grader Aria Smith of El Marino Language School won the art contest and El Rincòn Elementary School fifth graders Omar Attaalla, Anaiya Mitchell, Laila Remy and McKayla Williams are the selected winners of the speech contest.
The senior center is located at 4095 Overland Ave.
For more information, call (310) 253-6675 or visit www.culvercity.org.