DATE/TIME: Monday, February 23, 2015, 6:30 PM
PLACE: News & Letters Library, 228 S. Wabash Ave., Room 230, Chicago

In celebration of Black History Month, News and Letters Committees invite you to see and discuss a film of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

The Other America

“The Other America” is a film of the talk that Martin Luther King, Jr., gave in 1967, two years after the Watts Rebellion exploded, revealing a new stage of Black revolt. King is speaking at Stanford University in the Bay Area to a mostly white crowd of students, many of whom were involved in civil rights work and in the anti-Vietnam war movement. The African-American filmmaker, Allen Willis, wrote for News & Letters under the pen name John Alan. In Reel Black Talk: a Sourcebook of 50 American Filmmakers, Spencer Moon, writes that “Allen Willis has the distinction of being the dean of African-American film makers… Those who know the rich history of the area’s independent filmmaking community acknowledge him as a founding father.” John Alan could not get permission from the radio program he worked for at the time to film and record Dr. King, so, on his own, he brought his equipment and made the movie.

In John Alan’s column on “Martin Luther King’s philosophic legacy,” he wrote: “When one examines his concept of ‘nonviolent direct action,’ it becomes quite clear that ‘non-violent’ is not the transforming element. It is the ‘direct action’ of the masses, the self bringing forth of freedom, that changes things.”

The movie will be followed by a free and open discussion.

For more information: Phone: 312-431-8242; email: arise@newsandletters.org; on the web: www.newsandletters.org