HUNTSVILLE – Lisa McNair, sister of one of the four little girls killed in the 1963 bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, is the keynote speaker for UAH’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Program.
The event to honor King’s life and legacy will be Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in Room 112 of the UAH Student Services Building. will be the keynote speaker.
The event is open to the public. Admission is free, but registration is required.
The program is presented by the UAH Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI). This annual reflection and celebration of the Civil Rights icon is centered around one of his quotes that symbolizes his inspirational work. ODEI chose this quote for 2024: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
McNair, a Birmingham native, is the younger sister of Carol Denise McNair, who died Sept. 15, 1963, along with Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, after four Ku Klux Klan members planted dynamite at the church. Lisa reveals how she and her family endured this horrific and high-profile loss in her memoir, “Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew.”
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing was described by King as “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.” It marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Donations will be accepted at the event to support ODEI’s efforts to meet the $25,000 endowment goal for the Dave McGlathery Trailblazer Scholarship Fund. McGlathery was the first student to integrate the University of Alabama Extension Center on June 13, 1963. The center became the autonomous UAH campus in 1969, 55 years ago in 2024.
This scholarship aims to empower first-generation UAH students to build a more just society and establish their own trailblazing legacy. For more information, contact [email protected].
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