Martin Luther King Remembrance with Calvin Alexander Ramsey

When: Sunday January 18, 12:30 PM
Where: via Zoom & In-Person at 269 4th Avenue
*You must RSVP above to receive the Zoom link.

A true story inspires the moving tale of a mule that played a key role in the civil rights movement. When African-Americans in a poor community in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, who were inspired by a visit from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., attempted to defy local authorities trying to stop them from registering to vote, they got around a long detour on mule-drawn wagons. Later, after Dr. King’s assassination, two mules from Gee’s Bend pulled the farm wagon bearing his casket through the streets of Atlanta.

This event will be ASL interpreted.

About the Speaker

New York City-based Playwright, Book Author, Photographer, Calvin Alexander Ramsey was born in Baltimore, Maryland, before his family migrated to Roxboro, North Carolina.  Upon graduating from high school, he landed jobs in the print shop of a North Carolina newspaper, sold insurance, and studied at UCLA. He wrote and produced the musical Bricktop and Ruth and The Green Book, the picture book inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film The Green Book.

His photographs have been exhibited in the U.S. Virgin Islands and are included in private collections in the United States.  Ramsey received the Jane Adams Award for Ruth and The Green Book and Belle, The Last Mule at Gees Bend, the Bank Street College Best Book Award, the Texas Blue Bonnet Award, the Forward Magazine Best Book Award, ALA Notable Book Award, and the Star Review School Library Journal Award, and the distinguished Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drum Major for Justice Award.  Ramsey is a member of the National Arts Club, New York, Sons of the American Revolution, and a former Trustee at the Bronx Museum of Art, New York.