At this family-focused celebration of Dr. King’s ongoing influence on the fight for civil rights, enjoy hands-on activities and learn how to become more civically engaged in your community.

Included with admission, which is FREE for Illinois residents on this day.

Schedule

11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. – Freedom Song Sing-Along with Lenny Marsh and Friends

Lenny Marsh and Friends return to CHM to lead us through a musical performance of songs inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. Come sing and dance along with the band and have your voices heard!

11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. – Button Making for Justice

Join us to create your own buttons to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King and the continuing push for a more just and equitable society. Wear your button with pride as you explore our exhibitions and other programming throughout the day!

11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. – Make-n-Take Arts: Printmaking with Purpose with Jomo Cheatham

Chicago-based artists like Dr. Margaret Burroughs and Carlos Cortez have used various types of printmaking to create socially conscious and culturally meaningful pieces of art that speak to the needs and histories of many different groups of people.

Join teaching artist and practitioner Jomo Cheatham as he leads you through making your own prints. Using a variety of simple tools, design your own image, and Jomo will transfer it onto cardstock. Once the ink has dried, you can take your creation home and make more prints on your own!

12:00–1:00 p.m. – Public Talk – Dr. Elizabeth Todd-Breland

Hear from Dr. Elizabeth Todd-Breland of the University of Illinois Chicago, whose research and teaching focuses on 20th-century US urban and social history, African American history, and the history of education. Her work also explores interdisciplinary issues related to racial and economic inequality, public policy, neighborhood transformation, education policy, and civic engagement.

12:00–2:00 p.m. – Poems While You Wait

Founded in 2011 by Dave Landsberger, Kathleen Rooney, and Eric Plattner, Poems While You Wait is a collective of poets and their manual typewriters whose mission is to appear around the city in public places to provide patrons with a magical, unexpected, unpretentious, and decontextualized encounter with poetry. Visitors provide the poets with a subject and will receive their own unique hand-typed poem in minutes! No requested topic is too big or too small, too funny or too sad, too silly or too serious.

1:00–2:30 p.m. – Lawndale King Staged Reading

Collaboraction Theatre will present a free staged reading of Lawndale King, Willie Round’s powerful new play about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s time living in Chicago’s North Lawndale community. Legendary Chicago director and filmmaker Pemon Rami will direct the reading and join Round for a post-show discussion.

Lawndale King revives the chapter in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life in 1966 when he moved his family to live in an apartment in North Lawndale on Chicago’s West Side. Gripping scenes and vivid community voices tell the intertwined stories of activists, families, slumlords, gangs, pastors and neighborhood youth, revealing the tension, hope, and courage that defined one of King’s most dangerous missions – joining the Chicago Freedom Movement to fight discriminatory housing practices. Intimate and sweeping, Lawndale King showcases Chicago’s West Side as a battleground for justice, capturing the humanity, humor, fear, and resilience of a community standing at the crossroads of change.

2:30–3:00 p.m. – Lawndale King Panel Discussion