Dr. J. Larry Allums, Executive Director of the Dallas Institute
Spring 2009 will hold some historic moments. Our first Spring offering, the 4th annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Symposium on January 19, will occur on the eve of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration, and the relevance of the juxtaposition is clear: less than two generations after the police dogs, fire hoses, and bombings in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963--the theme of this year's MLK program--a man of African-American descent will enter the highest office of the land.
Our featured guests on MLK Day, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Diane McWhorter and Civil Rights veteran Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, will reflect on Birmingham as the turning point in the Civil Rights struggle and the significance of the entire movement in bringing us to this historic moment.
The Institute's Hiett Prize in the Humanities is also at a threshold: the awarding of this year's $50,000 prize in April will mark the Hiett's 5th anniversary of identifying outstanding young talent in the humanities. This year's keynote guest for the Hiett Prize event will be Broadway great Stephen Sondheim, described recently as having "reinvented the American musical," and in advance of Sondheim's appearance on April 28th, we will conduct two programs showcasing his artistic achievement.