2023 Community MLK Celebration Lecturer
Karen Walrond (pictured above)
Karen Walrond is a best-selling author, leadership and activism coach, and Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator. She holds a BS in civil engineering from Texas A&M University, a JD from the University of Houston Law Center, and is an active member of the State Bar of Texas. Her speaking engagements are infused with her passion for empowering others toward self-determination and leadership. She inspires people to joyfully advocate for justice, peace, and liberation.
Past Lecturers for the Women's Center's Community MLK Celebration Event
2017 Russel Jones, Professor of Psychology at Virginia Tech and co-editor of Behavior Therapy and Black Populations: Psychosocial Issues and Empirical Findings
2018 Loretta Ross, co-founder of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
2019 Brittney Cooper, author and assistant professor in the Departments of Women and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers
2020 Morgan Jerkins, author of This Will Be My Undoing - Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America
2021 Austin Channing Brown, author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
2022 Mikki Kendall, author of Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
About the Community MLK Celebration
The annual Community MLK Celebration aims to commemorate the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a series of events in January that bring people together from across the University and the local community. Each year as a part of our Director’s Initiative on Diversity and Equity, the Women's Center host a public talk for the Community MLK Celebration featuring an author or other leader whose work inspires students and our wider community to further their work for equity and wellbeing for all.
We encourage you to learn more about the Community MLK Celebration and other events offered through it by visiting: mlk.virginia.edu