LNT's MLK Jr Day Community Project

Welcome to Lost Nation Theater’s Martin Luther King Jr Community Celebration Project

Thank you to all the artists and community members who participated, and made this dream come true by sharing your favorite quotes and excerpts of speeches, sermons, and letters, as well as songs of the civil rights movement.

Thank you for being part of the call to continue his work and celebrate his legacy.

We hope that everyone who sees this video is as inspired as we were by making it!

Extra special thanks to friends and colleagues Dawn M Ellis and Shanda Williams for collaborating with Artistic Directors Kim Bent and Kathleen Keenan to grow the germ of an idea into this video project.  Thank you for Dawn as well for the introductory & closing remarks.

All the artists chose the excerpts they read - luckily, each artist chose a different letter to read! Community members & Friends chose their own quotes as well. The music/excerpts dance students moved to were chosen by their teachers Christine Harris and Isadora Snapp.

 

(Video editing by LNT Producing Artistic Director Kathleen Keenan)

We hope it inspires you to do a little reflecting on, and determining what actions you can take to bring more light, hope, justice, and love to the world. 
And we are so grateful to everyone who made this project possible!
As our nation seems to lurch backwards for every step forward, it remains critical to actively engage with and celebrate this holiday paying tribute to Dr King, and his dream of unity and equality for our country.
And that is why we are releasing this project again.

(A bonus feature, scroll below for video by Stanford Talisman Alumni Choir singing "Lift Every Voice" and a link to Martin Luther King Jr making his "I Have a Dream Speech")

Our thanks to our collaborators:

Contemporary Dance & Fitness Studio, Lisa Gaye Dixon, Dawn Ellis, Jessica Goodlin, Christine Harris, Mara Iverson, Kathy Johnson, Kathleen Keenan, Micheal Lowe, Moving Light Dance, Ginger Nickerson, Taryn Noelle, Abby Paige, Brandy Perez, Caleb Probst, Isadora Snapp, Shaun Stephens, Meredith Watson, Carolyn Wesley, Shanda Williams

Quotes and recitations from:

• 11th Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, August 16, 1967
• The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• From a 1968 "Conversation with Martin Luther King," originally published in "Conservative Judaism," collected in "A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.," edited by James M. Washington, (Harper Collins, New York: 1986), p 661.
• Letter from a Birmingham Jail
• Our God Goes Marching On (How Long Not Long)
• I’ve Been To The Mountaintop
• Death to Evil on the Seashore
• What’s Your Life’s Blueprint? 

Songs: Oh, Freedom by Shirley Verrett,  This Little Light Of Mine, Lift Up Your Voice and Sing, Amazing Grace
Additional underscoring Erik Walls, guitar, Sam Tolbert, piano, We Shall Overcome; Dawn Ellis -Amazing Grace

Want to Know More?

Here's a great "all in one" place for inspirational quotes: https://www.keepinspiring.me/martin-luther-king-jr-quotes/ ids a good resource

Want to read Dr King’s Speeches/Letters? 

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/our-god-marching 
https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/Vol03Scans/256_17-May-1956_The%20Death%20of%20Evil%20upon%20the%20Seashore.pdf
https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf

 

Martin Luther King Jr: