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SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah officials are hosting a special gala to honor some of the key players over the years in establishing activities to honor the late civil rights leader, on the weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Saturday’s event, the MLK 40th Anniversary Gala, comes as the University of Utah marks its 40th anniversary holding annual activities honoring King. Ticket sales have closed for the event, to be held at the Cleone Peterson Eccles Alumni House.
Pamela Bishop, chairwoman of the MLK Week 2024 planning committee at the U., said the honorees have been instrumental in developing and maintaining activities each year around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, officially next Monday. “These are active members of the MLK committee to this day,” she said.
The honorees are Steven Bell, Irwin Altman, Frances Battle, the late Afesa Adams, Ronald Coleman, Kathleen Christy and the Rev. France Davis and his wife Willene Davis. The winners of the U.’s Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Leadership Award program this year, 13 students in junior high and high school from across Utah, will also be recognized.
The Rev. Davis is pastor emeritus at Calvary Baptist Church in Salt Lake City and Adams, the former associate vice president of academic affairs at the U., launched the first celebration honoring King at the university. Those activities came even before Martin Luther King Jr. Day was an official state holiday in Utah, according to Bishop.
Adams was Bell’s mother and he’ll receive her honor on her behalf. Bell is associate professor of occupational and recreational therapies at the U. Adams led the U.’s first diversity office and its creation “gave the U. some national attention and encouraged minority students, faculty and staff to come to the university because they could see a Black woman in an important leadership role,” Bell said, according to a recollection posted on the University of Utah website.
Altman, now retired, previously served as vice president of academic affairs and appointed Adams to head that first diversity office at the U. when it launched in the 1983-84 school year. Coleman took on the role leading diversity efforts at the U. after Adams left the university in 1989.
Battle has been an educator for more than four decades in the Salt Lake City area, serving as a teacher and school principal, according to the U. Christy served as an educator in Utah for many years and worked in diversity and multicultural education, according to the History Makers, a website that tells the stories of African Americans.
Proceeds from Saturday’s gala will benefit the Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Leadership Awards. Aside from that event, the U. is hosting or organizing a range of activities between Saturday and Jan. 19 as part of Martin Luther King Jr. Week. Among other activities, a march is set for Monday starting at 2:30 p.m. at East High School at 840 S. 1300 East in Salt Lake City.