Malcolm Kenyatta. Photo by Quinn Brown.

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Representative Malcolm Kenyatta will deliver the 2024 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Keynote Lecture in the Villanova Room, Connelly Center on Wed., Jan. 24, at 7 p.m. His lecture, entitled “Bending the Arc,” is free and open to the Villanova community and the public. 

A North Philadelphia native, Representative Kenyatta is currently serving in the Pennsylvania General Assembly (181st District, Philadelphia County). He earned a B.A. in Public Communications and a minor in Political Science from Temple University, an M.S. in Strategic and Digital Communications from Drexel University, and completed the Harvard Kennedy School’s Executives in State and Local Government program.

President Joe Biden appointed Representative Kenyatta as chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans in April 2023. “Representative Kenyatta is a barrier-breaking public figure, becoming the first openly LGBTQ+ person of color and one of the youngest people to become a member of the PA General Assembly in 2018. In 2022, he became the first openly LGBTQ+ person of color to seek a U.S. Senate seat in American history.”

For more on Representative Kenyatta, stream the 2023 documentary Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn for free in Falvey Library’s collection. The film follows Representative Kenyatta’s 2022 campaign trail for his U.S. Senate run. The documentary is also available in DVD format at Falvey.

Dig deeper and explore the links below: 

• Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn (Al Roker Entertainment, 2023)
• Going Forward (Seven Knots Film & Media, 2018)
• President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions (The White House, 2023)
• Malcolm Kenyatta (Pennsylvania House of Representatives)
• Malcolm Kenyatta (PA House Democrats)
• Malcolm Kenyatta for Auditor General (Malcolm for PA)
• The 2023 Pennsylvania Power 100 (City & State Pennsylvania, 2023)

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Library.

The Rev. Jim Wallis. Image courtesy of Georgetown University.

The Rev. Jim Wallis will deliver the 2023 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Keynote Lecture at Villanova University on Wednesday, Jan. 25, at 7 p.m. in the Villanova Room, Connelly Center.

Born in Detroit, Wallis was raised by an Evangelical family in Redford Township, a small suburb of Detroit. During this time Wallis “questioned the racial segregation in his church and community and later became involved in the civil rights and antiwar movements at Michigan State University.” He attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. In 1971, Wallis, along with his fellow seminarians, founded the People’s Christian Coalition in Chicago. He also founded a Christian magazine named Post American that same year. The People’s Christian Coalition moved to Washington D.C. in 1975 and adopted the name Sojourners (Post American became Sojourners magazine.) Sojourners’ ministries “are a committed group of Christians who work together to live a gospel life that integrates spiritual renewal and social justice.”

A bestselling author, Wallis served on President Obama’s White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships in 2009. He is currently serving as the first Chair in Faith and Justice, and leader of the Center on Faith and Justice in the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. Prior to his current role, Wallis was a research fellow at the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. He taught courses at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and Georgetown University, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Georgetown University in 2007. Produced by Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice, Wallis hosts The Soul of the Nation, a bi-weekly podcast with more than 15,000 listeners. In 2022, Wallis was named one of Washington DC’s 500 Most Influential People by the Washingtonian staff.

Dig deeper and explore the links below to learn more about Wallis before his visit to campus:

• Podcast: The Soul of the Nation
• The Rev. Jim Wallis: “Crossing the Color Line” (TheoEd Talks)
• Sojourners
• The Center on Faith and Justice (Georgetown University)
• Washington DC’s 500 Most Influential People (Washingtonian, 2022)
• A Reverend Reckons with American Nationalism and the Christian Faith Community (NPR, 2022)
• Obama Announces White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships (2009)

Wallis’ Books Available at Falvey Library:

• The Call to Conversion (1982)
• Waging Peace: A Handbook for the Struggle to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (1982)
• Peacemakers: Christian Voices from the New Abolitionist Movement (1983)
• Revive Us Again: A Sojourner’s Story (1983)
• Revive Us Again: A Sojourner’s Journey (1983)
• The Rise of Christian Conscience: The Emergence of a Dramatic Renewal Movement in the Church Today (1987)
• The Soul of Politics: A Practical and Prophetic Vision for Change (1994)
• Who Speaks for God? An Alternative to the Religious Right-A New Politics of Compassion, Community, and Civility (1996)
• Faith Works: Lessons from the Life of an Activist Preacher (2000)
• Cloud of Witnesses (Hollyday & Wallis, 2005)
• God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (2005)
• The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America (2008)
• America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America (2017)

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Library.

References:

About Jim Wallis. (n.d.). Center on Faith +Justice. Retrieved December 21, 2022, from https://faithandjustice.georgetown.edu/about-jim-wallis/

Jim Wallis. (2012, November 1). Sojourners. https://sojo.net/biography/jim-wallis

Jim Wallis | Biography & Facts | Britannica. (n.d.). Retrieved December 21, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jim-Wallis

Obama Announces White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. (n.d.). The White House. Retrieved December 21, 2022, from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/realitycheck/node/2159

By Jenna Renaud

Word of the Week: Agelast 

(noun) a person who never laughs  

Okay, so maybe 2022 hasn’t started off exactly like we thought it would but try to keep a sense of humor as we move into in the new year to keep yourself from becoming an agelast. To help keep the humor alive this year, I’ve compiled some of the worst jokes about January that I could find. 

Q: Where do storm troopers go to warm up on cold January days? 

A: The Darth Mall. 

Q: What is the first month of the year in Transylvania? 

A: Janu-eerie. 

Q: What can you catch in the winter with your eyes closed? 

A: A cold. 

Q: What happened to the woman who stole a calendar on New Year’s Day? 

A: She got 12 months! 

This Week at Falvey  

Tuesday, January 18th 

Martin Luther King Jr. Keynote Address / 7–8:30 p.m. / Virtual  

Peace and Justice Education will host the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Keynote Address, delivered by Winona LaDuke, Harvard-educated economist, environmental activist, and author who specializes in rural development; economic, food, and energy sovereignty; and environmental justice.  

Thursday, January 20th 

The Freedom School will offer hour-long, online sessions hosted by various faculty members, staff, and students that relate to and extend the vision of Dr. King. The sessions will be hosted at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m., and 2:30 p.m. 

This Week in History 

January 22nd, 1998 – Ted Kaczynski, the “Unabomber,” pleads guilty to bombings 

Theodore J. Kaczynski is currently serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison in Colorado after pleading guilty to all federal charges regarding the “Unabomber” bombings. 

The “Unabomber” primarily targeted universities, although he also placed a bomb on an American Airlines flight and send one to the president of United Airlines. Federal investigators set up the UNABOM Task Force (a combination of university and airline) leading the media to give the man the name “Unabomber.” 

To read more about Ted Kaczynski, his history, and how he was caught, read this article from History.com. 

History.com Editors. (2010, October 04). Ted Kaczynski Pleads Guilty. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ted-kaczynski-pleads-guilty-to-bombings 

Jenna Renaud is a Graduate Assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a Graduate Student in the Communication Department.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Photo credited to Don Usner.

Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor will deliver the 2021 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Keynote Address on Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 5 p.m. Her lecture entitled, “The Radical King and the Quest to Change America,” will be available through the MLK Keynote Zoom link.

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2020 and National Book Award Finalist in 2019, Taylor is assistant professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author or editor of five books, and her three authored books are available in both print and electronic formats via Falvey Memorial Library: 

• ​Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (University of North Carolina  Press, 2019)
• How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (Haymarket Books, 2017)
• From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2016)

Following Taylor’s keynote address, Villanova University will host its annual Freedom School, a day of learning that celebrates and extends the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. Virtual sessions will be held throughout the day on Thursday, February 4, on a variety of topics. 

This year, Falvey represents at Freedom School via “Trusted News in a Hostile World: African American Newspapers and Magazines,” an interactive workshop on Thursday, Feb. 4, at 11:10 a.m., led by Jutta Seibert, Director of Research Services and Scholarly Engagement and Librarian for history, art history, and global interdisciplinary studies. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore news coverage of important events in African American history and will learn about several online databases for retrieving this content. For additional information on Seibert’s workshop and to access the full schedule of Freedom School events, visit the University’s Freedom School webpage.

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.