The City of Bloomington’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration will be honoring the women contemporaries of King, as well as women in the Bloomington community who continue to advocate for an equitable society.
The event is scheduled from 5:30 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. Jan. 19 at the Buskirk Chumley Theater. It’s free and open to the public. This year the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration commission chose the theme Soul, Spirit, & Sacrifice: Honoring the Legacy of Coretta Scott King and the Women Who Faced America to Save U.S.
The celebration will have keynote speaker historian Dr. Traci Parker, whose work focuses on African American history and the Civil Rights Movement. There will be a presentation on Coretta Scott King and discussion on other historical women like Daisy Bates and Meryle Joy Reagon, said Aubrey Seader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration commission’s staff liaison.
Seader said it’s important to give homage to these women and others because of the lack of credit they have gotten for their work in the Civil Rights Movement.
“They did behind-the-scenes, sort of thankless work, but that work was so instrumental, that work was so important in shaping what we then saw happen,” she said.
The commission has also invited 60 women from the community to be recognized for continuing to uplift and protect human rights, Seader said. Monroe Circuit Court Judge Valeri Haughton, Monroe County Clerk Nicole Browne, Monroe County Counciler Jennifer Crossley and Indiana University’s Director of La Casa/Latino Cultural Center Lillian Casillas are some of the 60 who will be acknowledged.
“We wanted to pair the celebration of these historic women, these historically under-appreciated women, with the appreciation of women in our own community whose names deserve to be uplifted as women who really serve and protect people in our community,” Seader said.
There will also be musical performances by the African American Choral Ensemble, and the 2026 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Award will be presented. This year the award will be going to Ruth Aydt. Aydt is a longtime member of the Monroe County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and chair of the Unitarian Universalist Church’s Racial Justice Task Force.
The goal of the event is to continue to teach new generations about Martin Luther King Jr.’s work and vision of the future in which everyone is treated fairly, Seader said.
She said those who originally pushed for this local holiday wanted it to continue King’s legacy and “remind new generations to teach them how to embody that sense of justice and that desire for justice and peace and an equitable society.”
In conjunction with the celebration, the community will also be able to participate in Martin Luther King Jr. 40 Days of Peace volunteer opportunities.
