Martin Luther King Day, Jr. would have turned 95 years old on Monday, January 15. The floating national holiday honoring the Civil Rights leader is always on the third Monday of January, but this year, it falls on King’s actual birthday. New Yorkers can take advantage of the long weekend with a range of events at cultural institutions across the city, from film screenings to discussion panels and special family programming at museums.
Brooklyn Academy of Music
The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) will host its 38th annual tribute to MLK on Monday, January 15. This year’s keynote speaker is Reginald Dwayne Betts, the poet, scholar, and activist who founded Freedom Reads, an organization that works to increase access to literature inside prisons. Musician Madison McFerrin and the Sing Harlem choir will perform, and artist Lexy Ho-Ta will help lead a workshop in which children can contribute to a community banner. The kids’ portion of the event also includes performances by dancer Robenson Mathurin, musician and teacher Okai Fleurimont, and poets Jada Wilkinson and Zaven. At 1pm, BAM will screen Director George C. Wolfe’s 2023 film Rustin, which tells the story of the activist Bayard Rustin, who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.
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Brooklyn Academy of Music (bam.org)
30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn
January 15 (10:30am)
The Queens Public Library
With 66 locations, the Queens Public Library (QPL) offers what may be the city’s most extensive Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration. Among the highlights are a January 18 screening of King’s speeches at the Langston Hughes Library and a January 16 virtual discussion about activism from the 19th century through the modern day. The talk features President and CEO of Brooklyn’s Weeksville Heritage Center Dr. Raymond Codrington, author of How to Build a Black Future (2023) Christopher Paul Harris, and Andrew Jackson (also known as Sekou Molefi Baako), a Black Studies professor at CUNY’s York College who serves on the QPL’s board. Next weekend, visitors to the Central Branch on Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica can view the one-act play “The Meeting.” The show, presented by Harlem’s Shades of Truth Theatre, depicts a fictional conversation between King and Malcolm X at the Theresa Hotel in the neighborhood the troupe calls home.
Queens Public Library (queenslibrary.org)
Langston Hughes Library at 100-01 Northern Boulevard Ave and Central Branch at 89-11 Merrick Boulevard, Queens
January 12–February 8, with the possibility of additional events
Queens College
In the same borough, Queens College will present its annual MLK celebration on Sunday, January 14. The multi-pronged event features a host of speakers, a choral performance, and a screening of the school’s most recent episode of its docuseries about King, which explores the relationship between the school and the Civil Rights leader.
Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College (kupferbergcenter.org)
LeFrak Concert Hall at 153-49 Reeves Ave, Queens
January 14 (3pm)
Jackie Robinson Museum
On Monday, Lower Manhattan’s Jackie Robinson Museum, which opened in 2022, will present a series of programming centering the relationship between King and the institution’s namesake, the first Black player in Major League Baseball. After his retirement in 1957, Robinson made frequent appearances at Civil Rights actions alongside MLK. After protestors were jailed in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, Robinson held a jazz concert in his Connecticut backyard to raise bail money, and the star-studded event, attended by MLK, turned into a years-long tradition. This weekend, the museum will lead two guided tours, crafting activities, trivia, and a scavenger hunt as well as an interactive workshop about the music of the Civil Rights movement.
Jackie Robinson Museum (jackierobinsonmuseum.org)
One Hudson Square Building, 75 Varick Street, Manhattan
January 15 (12pm–3pm)
Museum Events for Kids
In Crown Heights, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum will present a range of activities both on Sunday, January 14, and Monday, January 15. Grammy-nominated artist Harold “Fyütch” Simmons will lead a protest music workshop followed by an art-making event. Artist, director, and playwrite Nehprii Amenii created an interactive puppet performance that will take place across the two days. Before the show, kids can even make their own shadow puppets. In half-hour sessions, children will be able to visit the museum’s ColorLab studio to create collages in the style of artist Romare Bearden’s “Martin Luther King, Jr. – Mountain Top” (1988), a work that depicts the Civil Rights leader delivering his last speech.
A host of other museums across the city are also holding special programming for kids and teens this weekend to honor MLK. The Children’s Museum of Manhattan will present a series of art workshops, including one in which kids can draw on post-it notes that will eventually be arranged into a community mural. The Museum of Modern Art will hold an MLK Family Day on Saturday, January 13, and the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum in the Bronx will host a performance by drummer Sanga of the Valley, who tells stories as he plays his djembe. On Sunday, January 14, the Museum of the Moving Image will host a conversation about advocacy for teens, animation and green-screen making workshops, and a museum tour and scavenger hunt.
Brooklyn Children’s Museum (brooklynkids.org)
145 Brooklyn Avenue, Brooklyn
January 14 (10:30am–4:30pm)–January 15 (10:30am–4:45pm)
Source: Hyperallergic.com