{"id":59754,"date":"2019-01-15T16:22:30","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T22:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=59754"},"modified":"2019-01-15T16:22:37","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T22:22:37","slug":"1-19-celebrating-the-life-of-dr-martin-luther-king-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/1-19-celebrating-the-life-of-dr-martin-luther-king-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"1\/19: Celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In 2017, <strong>Square Books<\/strong>\nhonored the life of <strong>Dr. Martin Luther\nKing Jr.<\/strong> with a community reading of <strong>\u201cLetter\nfrom Birmingham Jail.\u201d<\/strong> The letter, composed while King was in jail on April\n16, 1963, came as a forceful theological and humane response to a group of\nAlabama clergy members who had openly criticized King for a perceived\nimpatience during a crucial early period of the Civil Rights Movement. For the\nreading, more than thirty local community members read a paragraph from the\nletter, including former <strong>University of Mississippi Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter<\/strong>\nand <strong>Chancellor Emeritus Robert Khayat<\/strong>, former <strong>Winter Institute\nDirector Susan Glisson<\/strong>, <strong>UM Athletic Director Ross Bjork<\/strong>, <strong>Second Baptist Church Pastor Andrew Robinson<\/strong>, author <strong>Alysia\nSteele<\/strong>, and <strong>Mayor<\/strong> R<strong>obyn\nTannehill<\/strong>, among others. It was a moving and unifying reading resulting in\na sense of empowerment and solidarity. All in attendance were inspired and we\nresolved to repeat the reading every year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The holiday celebrating the life of Dr. King is a time not only to\nreflect on the past, but also to examine on our lives today as well as to plan\nfor the better future he envisioned. This year, the event organizers are\nencouraging the women of our community to take the lead in performing the\nreading. Everyone is invited to attend <strong>Saturday,\nJanuary 19<\/strong> at 5 pm at <strong>Off Square\nBooks<\/strong>, 129 Courthouse Square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The letter is included in Reverend King&#8217;s book,\u00a0<em>Why We Can&#8217;t Wait<\/em>. According to Square Books&#8217; Richard Howorth,\u00a0&#8220;King began writing the letter in the margins of a newspaper in which the ministers&#8217; letter had appeared, and it is considered to be one of the great literary documents of American history. We are excited to help the community remember and celebrate the life of this great man.&#8221; King was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace the following year, 1964.<br><br>To sign up to read or for further information,\u00a0contact Sarah Baker at Square Books by calling\u00a0<a href=\"tel:662-236-2262\">662-236-2262<\/a>\u00a0or emailing\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"mailto:sarah@squarebooks.com?subject=MLK%20reading\" target=\"_blank\">sarah@squarebooks.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"25\" height=\"16\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg?resize=25%2C16\" alt=\"The Local Voice Ligature\" class=\"wp-image-14544\"\/><figcaption>The Local Voice Ligature<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2017, Square Books honored the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a community reading of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":63999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6539,11658],"tags":[9715,9708,7611,4905,602],"class_list":["post-59754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-events","category-holidays","tag-civil-rights-movement","tag-letter-from-birmingham-jail","tag-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-reading","tag-square-books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/2019-01-16-MLK-Day-reading.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}