The EMU history department and Black Student Union host Dr. Vincent Harding to share from his life and faith journey as part of the Keim Lecture Series and Black History Month. Dr. Harding was a friend and close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a Mennonite pastor who visited EMU during the Civil Rights era. We are honored to again host him on campus.

Dr. Harding, a friend and confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., presents a guided discussion based on his years of experience with the Civil Rights movement, and on his recent thinking about compassion and the many forms of non-violent expression for social change.

Dr. Vincent Harding is a celebrated Civil Rights leader and scholar who was a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr. and the first director of the King Center in Atlanta. Harding also worked closely with Mennonites during the early 1960s, directing the “Mennonite House” in Atlanta from 1961-1964. In 1967, Harding drafted King’s important and controversial “Why I am Opposed to the War in Vietnam” speech. He is the author of several books on the Civil Rights Movement, was the senior academic advisor for the PBS documentary “Eyes on the Prize” series, and in 1997 he founded the Veterans of Hope Project which collects the stories of people who dedicated their lives to compassionate social change. In 2011 he engaged in a panel with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Sister Helen Prejean and this inspired his 2013 book, America Will Be!: Conversations on Hope, Freedom, and Democracy, co-authored with Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda.