The Rev. Joseph Brown, S.J., to Deliver Keynote Address at Breakfast and Luncheon

DePaul University’s Cultural Center will host its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Prayer Breakfast Jan. 17, from 7:30 a.m. until 9:30 a.m., at the Student Center, 2250 N. Sheffield Ave., Room 120. The College of Law will honor the legacy of King at a luncheon to be held from 11:45 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. at the Egan Urban Center, 243 S. Wabash Ave., Room 9102.

The Rev. Joseph A. Brown, S.J., professor and director of the Black American Studies program at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, will deliver keynote addresses at both events. His speech, titled “Elijah Rock: How to See from the Mountain Top,” will serve as the centerpiece of commemoration for the prayer breakfast. His address “The Unfinished Journey: The Beloved Community Today” will underscore the luncheon.

Brown is an active lecturer in the areas of African and African American spirituality, history, literature and aesthetics. He is the author of “A Retreat with Thea Bowman and Bede Abram: Leaning on the Lord” and “To Stand on the Rock: Meditations on Black Catholic Identity.” A member of the Jesuit religious community since 1962, Brown has served as a principal liturgist for the National Black Catholic Congress.

During the prayer breakfast, DePaul’s Cultural Center will present its first Barbara Sizemore Human Rights Award to Margaret Burroughs, an artist, historian and founder of the DuSable Museum of African-American History. Sizemore, a former dean of DePaul’s School of Education and a nationally recognized educator, died last July.

At the luncheon, winners of the College of Law’s M. L. King Jr. Annual Essay Competition will be announced. Students competing for the $2,000 in scholarships penned essays that discuss and compare King’s understanding of moral values as derived from his first major speech on the Vietnam War and the definition of moral values in the wake of the 2004 presidential election.

The breakfast and luncheon are free and open to the public. Those persons interested in attending the breakfast should R.S.V.P. by calling 773/325-7759. To R.S.V.P. for the luncheon contact Lawrence Arendt at 312/362-8450 or larendt@depaul.edu (indicate if vegetarian).