Join together at Brookline’s annual MLK Day celebration to honor the life and values of Martin Luther King, Jr. This year’s one-hour event features:
Keynote Speaker Dr. Noliwe Rooks. Dr. Rooks is the L. Herbert Ballou University Professor in Africana Studies at Brown University. Her award-winning scholarship explores how race and gender both impact and are impacted by popular culture, social history, and political life in the United States. Her most recent book is Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children.
Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Regie Gibson. Mr. Gibson wears many hats— professor at Berklee College, jazz musician, and educator. His poems for public occasions engage complex historical and social issues, inviting audiences into the dialogue with hope and often humor to create common ground and foster social cohesion. A much-loved and inspiring performer at Brookline MLK Day events, we are excited to have him return to our stage.
Poet Laureate of Brookline, Allison Adair.
Ms. Adair is an award-winning poet, essayist, and professor at Boston College. As Dr. King often used poetry in his speeches, the event has traditionally featured a reading by our town laureate. We are honored to have Brookline’s most recent appointee to the position continue the tradition.