Andrews Honors Martin Luther King, Jr.

Special event Thursday, Jan. 15

Andrews University invites the community to join them for their annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration on Thursday, January 15, at 11:30 a.m. in Pioneer Memorial Church on the campus of Andrews University. This event is free and open to the public.

The speaker for this event is Onlielove Alston, faith community organizer and contributing writer for Sojourners Magazine. Alston will speak on the topic of The Biblical Call to Justice and African Roots of the Sabbath.

Alston was born and raised in East New York, Brooklyn. Though she was not raised with any faith at all, at the age of 10 she felt led to read the Bible and pray. Four years later she experienced an inspiring conversion while attending a local Baptist church. She has since earned a degree in human development and African-American studies from Penn State University, and master’s degrees in divinity and social work from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University School of Social Work, respectively.

A member of Alpha Nu Omega Inc. (a Christian sorority) and the Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary, Alston is part of a growing movement to end poverty. For more than 10 years, Alston has interned and worked for various non-profit organizations such as Sojourners Magazine, New York Faith & Justice, United Workers and Healthcare-Now!

Alston is a featured blogger on Your Black World, and her writing has also appeared in “The Black Commentator,” CONSPIRE Magazine and NPR’s “Onbeing” blog, as well as other print and online publications.

For her writing and activism work, Alston has received the Bennett Fellowship for Social Justice from Auburn Seminary, the National Association of Social Workers-NYC Scholarship for Social Justice, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Minority Coalition Young Adult Award and the 2011 Evangelical Press Association’s Student Writer of the Year First Place Award for her Sojourners Magazine cover story, “Dethroning King Coal: Christians defend a way of life, and the earth, in Appalachia.”

For more information about Alston and her achievements, visit emergingvoicesproject.org. For any questions regarding the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration event at Andrews, contact the Office of Student Life at slife@andrews.edu or 269-471-3215.