Each year, Goshen College honors the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by holding an all-school study day, emphasizing the values and ideals that characterized King’s work.
2024 King Celebration: “Black Housing and Unsung Sheroes, Champions of Change in Elkhart County”
Dates: January 13-15, 2024
Cyneatha Millsaps, Executive Director, Goshen College’s Center for Community Engagement
Keynote speaker: Cyneatha Millsaps, Executive Director, Center for Community Engagement of Goshen College
Millsaps, who is from Elkhart, is also the Executive Director of Mennonite Women USA, where she provides leadership for women’s groups and individuals domestically and internationally. She has also been a Mennonite pastor, leading congregations and communities for over 17 years. Millsaps received her bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology at Bethel College (now University) in Mishawaka, in 2000 and her Master of Divinity degree from the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in 2008. She is the founder of BAPS (Black American Princesses), a mentoring program for young African American females between the ages of 8-17 as well as the chair of the Board of Directors for the Tolson Center for Community Excellence in Elkhart. She is married to Steven Millsaps, and together they have seven children and 22 grandchildren.
2024 Event Schedule
Click image to view event poster
Students may receive up to 2 convocation credits for GC sponsored King Celebration venue events.
Saturday, January 13
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Allison Joseph
7:30 p.m. – Guest lecture: Poetry reading with Allison Joseph, Umble Center
- Joseph is a poet who directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois.
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A book signing will follow, sponsored by Fables Books
Sunday, January 14
- 9:30 a.m. – Worship Service: Sermon by Cyneatha Millsaps, College Mennonite Church (livestream)
- Millsaps is the executive director of Goshen College’s Center for Community Engagement
Monday, January 15
- 10-11:15 a.m. – Convocation: Cyneatha Millsaps, Church-Chapel (livestream)
- Reception to follow, Church-Chapel, South Fellowship Hall
- 1 p.m. – Workshop for Black Students, Faculty, and Staff: “Rising Beyond: Navigating Black Narratives,” Church-Chapel Fellowship Hall
- Not open to the public
- 2:15-4 p.m. – Documentary: “What Happened at Benham West: African American Stories of Community, Displacement and Hope,” Umble Center
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Nekeisha Alayna Alexis
The documentary collects elders’ stories of Elkhart’s predominantly African American Benham West neighborhood and documents the process of the city’s eventual clearing of the neighborhood. Nekeisha Alayna Alexis, intercultural competence and undoing racism coordinator at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), and Jamie Pitts, associate professor of Anabaptist studies and director of the Institute of Mennonite Studies at AMBS, coordinated the documentary, and Oliver Pettis of Black Lion Cinematography was the filmmaker.
- Q&A session (Benham West elders & Nekeisha Alayna Alexis) and reception to follow
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CO-SPONSORED BY: Goshen College’s Office of Student Life; Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; and English Department
Read about when Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Goshen College on March 10, 1960
At the time, King was leading the struggle for racial equality throughout the South.
Archive: Past MLK Jr. Study Days
2024 – Speaker: Cyneatha Millsaps, Executive Director, Center for Community Engagement of Goshen College
2023 – Speaker: Dr. Darryl Heller
2022 – Speaker: Dr. Vilna Bashi Treitler
2021 – Speaker: President Rebecca Stoltzfus and “Senior Administrators Speak: Equity & Justice in Action at Goshen College”
2020 – Speaker: Regina Shands Stoltzfus
2019 – Guests: Tiana Clark and Dr. LaKendra Hardware
2018 – Guest: Leonard Dow
2017 – Guest: Sarah Thompson
2016 – Guests: Sofia Samatar and Drew Hart
2015 – Guests: Ewuare Osayande and Rev. Kanyere Eaton
2014 – Guests: Anthony Brown and Rebecca Kubacki
2013 – Guests: Dr. Wilbert Smith and Dana Johnson
2012 – Guest speaker: Vincent Harding
2011 – Guests: African-American religious historian Dr. Quinton Dixie and Latino fiction writer Manuel Luis Martinez
2010 – Guests: baritone Anthony Brown, Latina poet Brenda Cárdenas and the Indianapolis youth-led group Latino Youth Collective
2009 – Guests: director of the Indiana University-South Bend Heritage Center Monica Tetzlaff and Triple G Mime Group
2008 – AfriCaribe and African-American theologian Dwight N. Hopkins