Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at the University of Chicago

Mohammed Athie, chairman of the American Anti-Slavery Group, will be the featured speaker before an audience of 2,000 people at the University of Chicago’s Martin Luther King Jr. memorial celebration at noon on Monday, Jan. 16, in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave.

Athie, formerly a consular official of the Mauritanian Embassy, has written about the slave trade that persists in Mauritania and other countries and that, according to Athie, is largely ignored by governments and human-rights organizations.

The University’s annual ceremony honoring King, which is free and open to the public, will include performances by the University of Chicago Dancers and the University’s student vocal group MaJ’N.

Martin Luther King Day festivities are organized by the Coordinating Council for Minority Issues, the Martin Luther King Day Committee and Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. NOTE: Reporters and crews are asked to enter the Chapel at the south entrance. Still and video photography will be permitted from two locations in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, but no artificial lighting is allowed.