Two California State University, Fresno students and a community member will be honored at the Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Awards Banquet on Saturday, Feb. 25, at the Ramada Inn in Fresno as part of African People’s History Month.

The semi-formal event begins at 7 p.m. and includes a dinner, dance and awards ceremony. About 150 persons are expected to attend the sold-out banquet where the three honorees will be revealed for the first time.

The keynote address will be delivered by Dr. James Walton, chairman of the Fresno State English Department and expert on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In August 1963, Walton marched with Dr. King in the historic March on Washington where the late civil rights leader delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech.” Walton has studied Dr. King and the King Center in Atlanta and still has the program from the 1963 march.

As part of the university’s African People’s History Month celebration, the banquet is intended to pay tribute to faculty, staff and students who have made considerable contribution in the area of community service, said Dr. Meta Schettler, event coordinator who is an Africana Studies professor in Fresno State’s Africana and American Indian Studies Program.

“We are honoring those who act with the same courage and determination as displayed by these two heroes of the Civil Rights Movement,” Schettler said.

The banquet is sponsored by the African People’s History Month Committee, Africana and American Indian Studies, Black Faculty and Staff Association, Central Valley Cultural Heritage Institute, the Division of Student Affairs and the College of Social Sciences.

The Ramada Inn is located at Hwy. 41 and Shaw Ave. For more information, contact Schettler at 559.278.4593.

(Copy by University Communications student-intern Megan Jacobsen.)

Links

Original APHM press release: http://www.fresnostatenews.com/2006/02/African.htm The King Center: http://www.thekingcenter.org/

Rosa Parks: http://montgomery.troy.edu/museum/parksbio.htm

Dr. James Walton: http://www.csufresno.edu/english/Faculty/JEWalton.htm