National Black Arts Festival

April 4, 2008, 6:00 PM, doors open at 5:15

Atlanta Reads King

On April 4, 1968 at 6:01 p.m., Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was felled by an assassin’s bullet.  In Memphis, TN to lead a march of sanitation workers protesting against low wages and poor working conditions, he had been standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel when the shot rang out.  The man who had first come to the nation’s attention as one of the leaders of the Alabama bus boycott in 1955, who in 1963 led a massive march on Washington DC where he delivered his now famous 'I Have A Dream' speech and who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, was dead.  

The National Black Arts Festival commemorates the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King with Atlanta Reads King: A Commemorative Project of the National Black Arts Festival which will be held on April 4, 2008 at various locations throughout the Metro area.  Residents will be invited to participate in a community wide reading of The World House, an essay written by Dr. King and published in Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community.

Readers of the text will consist of a diverse group of community leaders, artists, students, politicians, clergy and community lay people.  In addition, NBAF radio partners will read excerpts of the text during appropriate day parts.

This is a FREE event.