The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) will honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Program on Thursday, Jan. 11, at 3:30 p.m. in Room 112 of the UAH Student Services Building. Lisa McNair, sister of one of the four little girls killed in the 1963 bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, will be the keynote speaker. UAH is part of the University of Alabama System.

The event is open to the public. Admission is free, but registration is required.

Lisa McNair, sister of one of the four little girls killed in the 1963 bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, will be the keynote speaker at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Program at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024, at 3:30 p.m. at the UAH Student Services Building

The program is presented by the UAH Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI). This annual reflection and celebration of the Civil Rights icon is centered around one of his quotes that symbolizes his inspirational work. ODEI chose this quote for 2024: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Lisa McNair, a Birmingham native, is the younger sister of Carol Denise McNair, who died on Sept. 15, 1963, along with Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, after four Ku Klux Klan members planted dynamite at the church. Lisa reveals how she and her family endured this horrific and high-profile loss in her memoir, “Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew.”

The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing was described by King as “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.” It marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Donations will be accepted at the event to support ODEI’s efforts to meet the $25,000 endowment goal for the Dave McGlathery Trailblazer Scholarship Fund. McGlathery was the first student to integrate the University of Alabama Extension Center on June 13, 1963. The center became the autonomous UAH campus in 1969, 55 years ago in 2024. This scholarship aims to empower first-generation UAH students to build a more just society and establish their own trailblazing legacy.

For more information, contact diversity@uah.edu.

This is a contributing post from UAH’s newsroom. For more information, please visit www.uah.edu/news.