Monday, Jan. 17 is Martin Luther King Day. In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy and dedication to ending segregation and inspiring racial equality, South Dakota State University’s Black Student Alliance will host three events next week.

The first event of the week will be held Tuesday, Jan. 18 beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Crest Room of the Student Union. This MLK Remembrance Ceremony features speaker Wayne Felton II – educator, district Director of Achievement and Integration in east St. Paul, youth pastor and a TikTok star known for contributing to the conversation about racism in America.

The second event of the week is the MLK Roundtable Discussion held Wednesday, Jan. 19 beginning at 3:00 p.m. in the American Indian Student Center classroom. This event will open a discussion about community safety and accountability with Jason Sole Ph.D., a formerly incarcerated abolitionist who went on to earn his Ph.D. in Criminal Justice. Sole now works as an adjunct professor at Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN where he prepares students for careers in law and law enforcement.

Sole also leads a Kickstarter to fund the “Institute of Aspiring Abolitionists” which “will explore community safety models with participants interested in learning about abolition. By understanding the legal system, history, Black entrepreneurship, formerly incarcerated entrepreneurship, effective ways to empower survivors of abuse, and youth-elder development, participants will begin to rely on each other, rather than the state,” as the Kickstarter states.

Lastly, the BSA will host the MLK Week Movie: “On These Grounds.” The movie will begin Thursday, Jan. 20 at 7:00 p.m. in The Market located in the Student Union. The 2021 documentary discusses a 2015 viral video that showed a white policeman throwing a Black teenager from her school desk. A woman then uproots her life in New York City to move to South Carolina to support the attacked girl and dismantle the system behind the assault at Spring Valley, including facing the police officer.