MLK speechwriter to present ‘Brain Food’ lecture at Dillard Sept. 24

Dillard University President Walter Kimbrough announced that his 2013-14 lecture series, “Brain Food,” will begin with a lecture from Clarence B. Jones, advisor and speechwriter for Martin Luther King Jr., on Tuesday, September 24, at 7 p.m. in the Georges Auditorium on Dillard’s campus. The lecture series is free and open to the public.

“As you know, this August, marked the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. It just seemed like the perfect way to begin the Brain Food Lecture Series,” Kimbrough said. “You’re going to hear from someone whose words had tremendous power, that literally transformed a nation,” he added.

Jones, a visiting professor at the Univ­ersity of San Francisco and a scholar writer in residence at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research & Education Institute at Stanford University and Palo Alto, California, is co- author of What Would Martin Say?, Behind the Dream – The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation and an e-book, Uprising: Understanding Attica, Revolu­tion and the Incarceration State.

In addition to helping draft the “I Have A Dream” speech, Jones has made significant contributions to the civil rights movement in America, including coordinating the defense of Dr. King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; drafting the settlement agreement that helped end demonstrations and desegregation in Birmingham department stores and public accommodations; and helping negotiate the end to the rebellion at Attica prison in 1971, to name a few.

Jones has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, both nationally and internationally, including CNN, “The O’Reilly Factor,” “The Tavis-Smiley Show,” NPR, CBS, British Broadcasting (BBC) in the United Kingdom, and Canadian Broad-casting. He has also been featured in The Washington Post, USA Today, Vanity Fair, Time and Ebony magazine among others.

Dr. Kimbrough launched the Presidential Series, Brain Food last April with a lecture by Michael Eric Dyson. Clarence B. Jones is the second speaker in the series.

The next lecture in the 2013-2014 series is scheduled for Thursday, October 17, and will feature the Rev. Jim Wallis, New York Times bestselling author, public theologian, speaker, and international commentator on ethics and public life. He is the author of 10 books, including On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned About Serving the Common Good (April 2013).

This article originally published in the September 02, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.