Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.  
                                                              –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Each January since 2004, the Birmingham Public Library Archives has sponsored an annual lecture or performance honoring the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and examining topics relating to human rights.

2023

BPL is partnering with the Charles A. Brown-Birmingham Branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History to present “Civil Rights Now: Birmingham Movements of Community Resistance.” 

Past Programs:

2022
 
Teneasha Washington (University of Alabama at Birmingham)
A Discussion of Black Maternal Health in the Southeast

2021

Connor O’Neill (Auburn University)
Down Along with That Devil’s Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy 
Cosponsor: Caroline Marshall Draughon Center, Auburn University

2020 

Kimberley Mangun (University of Utah)
Emory O. Jackson, Crusading Editor for Civil Rights
Cosponsor: Birmingham Association of Black Journalists

2019
Real Life Poets
Real Life Poets Remember Dr. King

2018
Erin Mauldin (University of South Florida—St. Petersburg)
The First White Flight: Industrial Pollution and Racial Segregation in Birmingham

2017
Panel of young people from Birmingham’s Islamic communities
The First Step: A Conversation on Islam in America
Cosponsor: Birmingham Islamic Society

2016
David Gespass
Voting Rights from Selma to Columbiana: Not Always Onward, Not Always Upward

2015
Randall C. Jimerson (Western Washington University)
Shattered Glass in Birmingham: My Family’s Fight for Civil Rights, 1961-1964

2014
Patricia McCay (Huntsville-Madison County Human Trafficking Task Force)
Human Trafficking 101

2013
Isabel Rubio (Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama)
Immigrant Rights and the Law in Alabama

2012
Larry Dane Brimner, Evelyn Coleman and Jo Kittinger
Teach Your Children Well: Writing African American History for Young Readers

2011
Michael W. Fazio (Mississippi State University)
Landscape of Transformations: Architecture and Birmingham, Alabama

2010
Tondra Loder (University of Alabama at Birmingham), George T. French, Jr. (Miles College), Cedric Sparks, Sr. (Birmingham Division of Youth Services), Karen Sparks (Community Entrepreneurship Institute), Lee Wendell Loder (Gift Corps Ministry), and Kate Neilsen (Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham)
Is a Generational Gap Holding Birmingham Back?

2009
Dan Jordan (Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, retired)
A Birmingham Lawman Remembers the Civil Rights Movement

2008
Barry Vaughn (St. Albans Episcopal Church and the University of Alabama)
The Convergence of the Twain: Dr. King and Bishop Carpenter—Lives in Collision

2007
Jim Baggett (Birmingham Public Library Archives)
When the Blast Occurred: Remembering the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing

2006
Charles Connerly (Florida State University)
City Planning and Civil Rights in Birmingham, 1920-1980

2005
Jonathan Bass (Samford University)
Remembering Martin Luther King’s "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

2004
Regina Ammon (Birmingham Public Library Archives)
Preserving Birmingham’s Civil Rights History