January 20, 2016

The Claremont Colleges Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration

The Claremont Colleges’ Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration will be held in the Pomona College Seaver Theatre (300 E. Bonita Ave., Claremont), where Jamilah Lemieux, activist, columnist and senior editor at Ebony magazine, will deliver the keynote address on Thursday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.

Jamilah Lemieux
Jamilah Lemieux

Lemieux, an advocate for race equality, social justice, and LGBTQ rights and support, developed a national following with her popular award-winning blog, The Beautiful Struggler, which focused on gender politics, race relations and biographical tales. She is a three-time Black Weblog Awards winner and ranked No. 94 in the BlackWeb 2.0 “100 Most Influential Black Women on Twitter.”

Lemieux’s has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” and “The Michael Eric Dyson Show,” and her work has been featured in Essence, Mic, JET, Clutch, The Nation, The Washington Post, Medium, and Gawker.

Born in Chicago, Lemieux’s parents were members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Black Panther Party.

The theme of this year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. commemorative events is The Presence of Justice, taken from one of Dr. King’s most revolutionary messages, Letters from a Birmingham Jail (1963). Other events include: