Formerly the Rosa Parks Lecture on Social Justice and Activism, the Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture Series honors the tremendous contributions to furthering civil rights by bringing national thought leaders to campus to provide insight and advocacy to current civil rights issues, including education, economic and justice system inequalities.
The Martin Luther King Lecture Series encourages UMKC students, staff, faculty and the Kansas City community to build upon the courageous, nonviolent activism of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., and to increase awareness of present day avenues to advocate for civil rights through free thought, action and scholarship.
Percival Everett
January 30, 2025
Percival Everett is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. His latest novel, "James," was published in March of 2024 to critical acclaim. His other titles include "Dr. No" (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award), "The Trees" (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), "Telephone" (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), "So Much Blue," "Erasure," and "I Am Not Sidney Poitier." He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. "American Fiction," the feature film based on his novel "Erasure," was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children.
