Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service
Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service

Teach Dr. King’s Speech

Read “King in the Classroom,” an article on the Teach the Speech Initiative in the Spring 2022 Georgetown magazine.

Teaching Resources for Teach the Speech 2024

Each year, as part of Georgetown University’s MLK: “Let Freedom Ring!” Initiative, the Center for Social Justice encourages members of our community to reflect on one of Dr. King’s famous speeches via Teach the Speech. Over the years, faculty, staff, and students across campus have participated in the Teach the Speech events focusing on a wide range of speeches by Dr. King.

Join us for the 13th annual Teach the Speech event which will take place on Friday, January 31, 2025 in Copley Formal Lounge on Georgetown University’s hilltop campus from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. This event will include an anti-racism Examen, a student speaker, a keynote by Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly with Q&A, and a book signing. Attendees will be able to participate in the event in person or through livestream. Please save the date! Registration for this event will open on January 6, 2025.

We invite Georgetown University community members to reflect on this interview (full text) that Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. offered on May 8, 1967 to NBC, 11 months before his assassination, as part of their special report “After Civil Rights: Black Power.” In the interview, Dr. King comments on the “new phase of the struggle for genuine equality.” Faculty members and staff can utilize this 2025 Teach the Speech Teaching Resource created by CNDLS as they plan for the 2025 spring semester.

This year’s event features Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly, Associate Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University. Her research and scholarship engage the Black radical tradition, 20th century Black social and political thought, the intersection of antiblack racial oppression and U.S. state repression, and globalization and economic development in the African diaspora. Dr. Burden-Stelly is the author of Black Scare/Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States and the co-author of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History. Some of her notable publications include Against the “Triple Evils”: The Biden Administration’s Affront to Dr. King’s Legacy and Martin Luther King Jr. and the Tradition of Radical Blackness.

Questions can be sent to CSJ’s Associate Director, Racial Justice Initiatives, Lionell Daggs III, at racialjustice@georgetown.edu.