Penn State Behrend’s 2023 celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will include a march, a film screening and the annual Campus Family Brunch. All programs are free and open to the public.

Behrend’s MLK events are coordinated by the Office of Educational Equity and Diversity Programs, with support from the Student Activity Fee.

Monday, Jan. 16:

Martin Luther King Jr. march and events in downtown Erie

11:15 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Members of the Behrend community are invited to join the Association of Black Collegians to participate in Erie’s annual MLK march. Participants will meet in the Wintergarden of the Reed Union Building at 11:15 a.m. and ride an EMTA bus to the march site.

Wednesday, Jan. 18:

Campus Family Brunch

11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., McGarvey Commons

All members of the Behrend community are invited to the annual Campus Family Brunch. Food will be served from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The multimedia presentation “Young Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement,” which showcases the history of student activism, will begin at noon.

Screening of the documentary film “At the River I Stand: The Climax of the Civil Rights Movement”

4 p.m., Reed Auditorium

The film, narrated by Paul Winfield, recounts the two months leading up to Martin Luther King Jr.’s death in 1968. It focuses in part on the strike by Memphis sanitation workers, a labor action that quickly expanded into a national movement.