Activist, author and television host Marc Lamont Hill is MLK keynote speaker at North Central College

North Central College welcomes Marc Lamont Hill, award winning author, television host, activist and professor, as keynote speaker for the 2018 Martin Luther King Jr. Week celebration.

Hill will speak Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. in the College’s Wentz Concert Hall at the Fine Arts Center, 171 E. Chicago Ave. Tickets are free to the College community and $5 per person for the public. Tickets can be purchased at the door or in advance by calling the box office at 630-637-7469.

Trained as an anthropologist of education, Hill holds a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor of science in elementary education from Temple University, where he is now the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions. He held positions at Columbia University and Morehouse College.

Hill is also host of BET News and VH1 Live, and a political contributor for CNN. An award-winning journalist, Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Ebony Magazine also named Hill as one of America’s 100 most influential Black leaders in 2011.

Hill is the author or coauthor of award-winning books including “Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity;” “The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black life in America” and “Gentrifier.”

In his most recent book, “Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable,” Hill critiques the injustices faced by the “Nobodies,” who he describes as the systematically disadvantaged groups in America due to race, sexual orientation or income. It received praise in the New York Times as “a worthy and necessary addition to the contemporary canon of civil rights literature.”

In 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to an audience of North Central students when he visited campus. Since then, the College honors and remembers his visit each year with a keynote presentation, musical tributes, a prayer breakfast and selected activities. A schedule of activities is on our website.

Martin Luther King Jr. Week events are sponsored in part by Nicor Gas and the College’s offices of Multicultural Affairs, Ministry and Service, Cultural Events, the Student Governing Association and Residence Life.