Two Brooklyn institutions, the Academy
of Music and the Botanic Garden, will host celebrations in honor
of civil rights pioneer Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday,
Jan. 17.
At 10:30 am at the BAM Opera House [30 Lafayette Ave. at Ashland
Place in Fort Greene], Tony Award-winning artist Melba Moore
will sing "Lift Every Voice," and Broadway star Lillias
White will perform with the Brooklyn Ecumenical Choir of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
A host of elected officials are scheduled to speak.
Following the free main-stage event, free screenings of "The
Untold Story of Emmett Till," by Fort Greene director Keith
Beauchamp, will be held in the BAM Rose Cinemas. Beauchamp’s
documentary delves into the trial and acquittal of the people
who mutilated and killed Till (pictured with his mother), a 14-year-old
black boy accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi
in 1955.
Seats to both the tribute and film screenings are available on
a first-come, first-seated basis. For more information, call
(718) 636-4100 or visit the Web site at www.bam.org.
At the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Palm House [1000 Washington
Ave. at Eastern Parkway in Prospect Heights], performances of
spirituals by the Great Day Chorale, By All Means Save Some Youth
Theater Ensemble and the Great Day Children’s Chorus will take
place at 11 am and 2:30 pm. At 1 pm, a tour highlighting the
plants of Africa will take place in the Steinhardt Conservatory.
For more information, call (718) 623-7200 or visit the Web site
at www.bbg.org.
Lisa J. Curtis
