A widely-respected historian whose work focuses on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights and labor studies will give the keynote address at Valparaiso University's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration on Jan. 19.

Dr. Michael Honey, Fred and Dorothy Haley Professor of Humanities at the University of Washington, Tacoma, will discuss this year's MLK Day theme "The American Dream: A Dream Yet Unfulfilled?" during a convocation at 10 a.m. in the Chapel of the Resurrection on campus. His talk, "MLK's Unfinished Agenda," will examine Dr. King's efforts to end racism, poverty and war. The MLK Day Convocation is free and open to the public.

Dr. Honey's 2007 book Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign, is a critically-acclaimed history of Dr. King's struggle for economic justice during the last months of his life.

His previous book include Black Workers Remember: An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism and the Freedom Struggle, which received the Southern Historical Association's H.L. Mitchell Award for a distinguished book on southern working-class history and the Southern Regional Council's Lillian Smith Book Award for a book on human rights issues, and Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers, winner of the Organization of American Historians' James A. Rawley Prize for an outstanding book on the history of race relations and the Southern Historical Association's Charles Syndor Prize for a book on southern history.

Dr. Honey is president of the Labor and Working-Class History Association, works with the Labor Heritage Foundation and other groups to preserve the cultural legacy of movements for social change, and has developed partnerships with a number of labor and community organizations in the Tacoma area. His students have prepared oral histories with scores of residents – including union members, business people, Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos and Japanese-Americans – and he has helped produce short films on labor and civil rights issues with Underdog Productions.

A civil rights and civil liberties organizer in the Deep South from 1970 to 1976, Dr. Honey has a long-standing interest in linking scholarship, music and public speaking with community and labor organizing. He has performed "Links on the Chain," a musical and multimedia presentation of labor and civil right history, with Pete Seeger and other musicians.

Also on Jan. 19, Dr. Honey will discuss Dr. King's involvement in the 1968 sanitation workers' strike in Memphis during the focus session "Going Down Jericho Road," from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. in Christopher Center Room 205. All MLK focus sessions the afternoon of Jan. 19 are free and open to the public.

The University's annual celebration of Dr. King's legacy features numerous activities – including several speakers, film screenings and musical performances – that are open to the public Jan. 16 to 22. For more information about activities, visit the MLK Celebration Web site.