The project
Nearly 60 years after the “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963), systemic issues such as racism, poverty and war, which Martin Luther King Jr. called “the three evils”, are still omnipresent in our society.
As Clayborne Carson, an African-American historian and founding director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Education and Research Institute in California, points out “the issues addressed by Martin Luther King Jr. particularly the ideal of human rights and social justice in the world, are more relevant today than at any other time in history”.
The words of Martin Luther King Jr. have gone down in history. Trained to be a preacher, he became the leader of a unified movement, inspiring tens of millions to support the right to freedom for African Americans.
However, Martin Luther King Jr. saw the world as interconnected, and strove to defend the equality of all individuals and universal human rights. “We are caught in a network of inescapable reciprocity, linked by one and the same destiny. Everything that affects one directly, affects the others indirectly,” he wrote in 1963. His ideas go far beyond his time and the society in which he lived.
The exhibition
Installed from May to July 2023 at the Aubette, Place Kléber in Strasbourg, the exhibition will focus on the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and, in particular, on Martin Luther King Jr.
Through the life and actions of Martin Luther King Jr. The exhibition aspires to encourage dialogue and creative public participation on critical issues such as segregation and integration, human rights and social injustice, diversity and equality, religion and ethics, resignation and conviction.
The exhibition will also be an opportunity to have a look at fundamental rights, civil rights and the commitment of exceptional men: René Cassin and Martin Luther King Jr, both recipients of the Nobel Prize.
2023, a key year with several commemorative dates and anniversaries in connection with René Cassin and Martin Luther King
- 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Cassin was the rapporteur and instigator with Eleanore Rosevelt
- 65th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize of René Cassin
- 65th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King
- 60th anniversary of the “I have a dream” speech
- 70th anniversary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg
- Bernice King’s 60th birthday during the opening of the exhibition
A project realized in collaboration and coordinated by
Ashley Woods: Internationally renowned curator, project manager and producer who works closely with Nobel laureates to promote world peace: human rights and sustainable development.
A project supported by
- Bernice A. King, the daughter of Martin Luther Jr.
- Coretta Scott King, Director of the King Center in Atlanta
An action financed with the support of
- Consulate of the United States
- Democracy Fund
- Rectorate of the Academy of Strasbourg
- Credit Mutuel
- Timken
- DS Smith