Bridgewater College, Town of Bridgewater to host MLK Jr. Day Celebration

Bridgewater College and the town of Bridgewater will host a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration 2019 on Monday, Jan. 21.

The celebration, “Celebrating the Dream, Continuing the Journey,” will begin at noon at Oakdale Park, located at 134 Mount Crawford Ave. in Bridgewater, Va. Speaking at Oakdale Park is Keon D. Nesmith, a Bridgewater College sophomore from Mechanicsville, Va.

Following brief remarks, participants will march and sing from Oakdale Park to Bridgewater Town Hall to the Kline Campus Center at Bridgewater College. Speakers at Town Hall include Dr. David Bushman, president of Bridgewater College, and Ted Flory, mayor of the town of Bridgewater.

A reception and student art display will be held at 1 p.m. in the Kline Campus Center lobby, followed by a “Community Engagement Workshop” with Dr. Derek Greenfield, motivational speaker and diversity and inclusion consultant, at 1:30 p.m. in Cole Hall.

Greenfield will combine innovative content, practical strategies and audience engagement as he speaks about creating an inclusive community, identifying values and cultivating empathy and understanding within the Bridgewater College campus community and the local community.

Bridgewater College will also present an endowed lecture by Nikki Giovanni at 7:30 p.m. in Cole Hall as part of the college’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance. Giovanni, a world-renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist and a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, will speak on “An Evening of Poetry, Love and Enlightenment.”

The Sankofa African American Museum on Wheels will display artifacts from the Middle Passage (slavery), to the era of King Cotton, to the days of Emancipation on Wednesday, Jan. 23, from noon to 6 p.m. in the Kline Campus Center lobby and the Boitnott Room at Bridgewater College. A presentation about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, will be held at 6 p.m. in Cole Hall.

All of the events are free and open to the public.

Bridgewater College is a private, four-year liberal arts college located in the Central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Founded in 1880, it was the state’s first private, coeducational college. Today, Bridgewater College is home to nearly 1,900 undergraduate students.