9th Annual MLK Convocation in Honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The University of Minnesota Law School is pleased to present our 9th Annual MLK Convocation in honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Dr. King and the Long Arc Toward Reproductive Freedom and Justice,” with Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin.  Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Ra’Shya Ghee ’13 will facilitate a discussion with Professor Goodwin focused on Dr. King’s 1966 acceptance speech upon receiving an award from Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Interim Dean William McGeveran will open with remarks and an overview of our Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. annual series.

In his acceptance speech for the award titled, “Family Planning - A Special and Urgent Concern by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Dr. King wrote:

“[W]e are natural allies of those who seek to inject any form of planning in our society that enriches life and guarantees the right to exist in freedom and dignity. For these constructive movements, we are prepared to give our energies and consistent support; because in the need for family planning, Negro and white have a common bond; and together we can and should unite our strength for the wise preservation, not of races in general, but of the one race we all constitute - the human race.”

Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin is the Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy and the co-faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. She was formerly a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine, where she was founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. She was also the Abraham Pinanski Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and the Everett Fraser Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She is the author of Policing The Womb: Invisible Women and The Criminalization of Motherhood.

*Source: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-gulf-coast/mlk-acceptance-speech

Lunch provided to those that RSVP by Thursday, February 22.