Campanile concert kicks off Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration

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US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior waves to supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 on the Mall in Washington DC during the March on Washington. 

Whitney Mason

Throughout the month of January, the Iowa State and Ames communities will host several free events beginning Wednesday to celebrate the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Let Freedom Ring: Carillon Concert will take place on Iowa State’s Central Campus at 11:50 a.m. on Jan. 10.

The annual concert, which has been taking place for 10 years, takes place prior to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and is the first event of the Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy series.

Carillonneur Tin-Shi Tam will return to Iowa State to perform a special concert to honor King during the event.

Tam also performed in the concert at Iowa State in 2016 and 2017.

Other events taking place during the series also include the 10th annual community birthday celebration on Jan. 15 at Ames Middle School.

A campus conversation on Jan. 18 which will discuss balancing First Amendment rights and concerns involving diverse populations on university campuses.

Participants in the conversation include Howard Gillman, chancellor of University of California Irvine and author of “Free Speech on Campus,” and Mariah Watson, former student government president at University of California Davis. According to her information on the Iowa State’s lectures page, Watson’s leadership helped advance inclusiveness and diversity across the University of California school system.

The series will conclude with “Race and Justice in America,” a lecture by Bryan Stevenson on Jan. 29. Stevenson’s lecture will discuss his memoir, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” which talks about his experience as a lawyer fighting against judicial inequalities and also discuss about the importance of confronting the history of racial terror in the United States.