Campus News

UK, Lexington Unite for 38th Annual MLK Day Tribute

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 11, 2010) – Noted economist, commentator, entrepreneur and academician Julianne Malveaux will visit Lexington to take part in the city's annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, Jan. 18.

The University of Kentucky and the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government are joining with the Kentucky Blood Center and other community sponsors to present the Commemorative Downtown March at 10 a.m. Monday, followed by the special program, "The Unfinished Agenda" with Malveaux as the featured speaker at 11 a.m. in Heritage Hall of Lexington Center.

Both events are free, and the public is encouraged to attend. For more information, visit www.uky.edu/MLK or call 257-4130.

Malveaux has long been recognized for her progressive and insightful observations as a labor economist, noted author and colorful commentator. She will bring that vision to Lexington to discuss "The Unfinished Agenda," which could be further described as the search for economic justice in the era of President Barack Obama.

A woman who has never taken the easy road, Malveaux currently serves as the 15th president of Bennett College for Women, where she has been the architect of an innovative transformation at America’s oldest historically black college for women. One of two historically black colleges and universities that focuses solely on women, Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., has a special role in American civil rights history. "Bennett Belles" were among those jailed when lunch counters were integrated in Greensboro. In support of the students' decision to be both scholars and activists Willa B. Player, Bennett’s president at the time, visited students in jail to deliver their class assignments.

 

Malveaux's contributions to the public dialogue on the social and economic impact of race, culture, gender have helped to shape public opinion in 21st century America. Malveaux’s popular writing has appeared in USA Today, Black Issues in Higher Education, Ms. Magazine, Essence Magazine, and the Progressive. Her weekly columns appeared for more than a decade (1990-2003) in newspapers across the country, including the Los Angeles Times, Charlotte Observer, New Orleans Tribune, Detroit Free Press, and San Francisco Examiner. She has hosted television and radio programs, and appeared widely as a commentator on networks, including CNN, BET, PBS, NBC, ABC, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN and others.

 

A native San Franciscan, she is the founder, president and CEO of Last Word Productions, Inc., a multimedia production company headquartered in Washington, D.C. She has designed educational and issue-based seminars and diversity training for Fortune 500 companies and others.

Malveaux has been a contributor to academic life and a true pioneer in the field of economics, focusing her research on the labor market, public policy, and the impact of policy on women and people of color, since receiving her doctorate in economics from MIT in 1980. She has been on the faculty or visiting faculty of the New School for Social Research, San Francisco State University, the University of California (Berkeley), College of Notre Dame (San Mateo, California), Michigan State University and Howard University. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics at Boston College.

Malveaux edited or co-edited the books "Slipping Through the Cracks: The Status of Black Women" (1986), "Black Greek Letter Organizations in the 21st Century" (2008 by the University Press of Kentucky), "The Paradox of Loyalty: An African American Response to the War on Terrorism" (2004), "Unfinished Business: a Democrat and a Republican Take on the 10 Most Important Issues Women Face" (2002)

She is the author of a two collections of columns, "Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: Perspectives of a Mad Economist" (1994) and "Wall Street, Main Street and the Side Street: A Mad Economist Takes A Stroll" (1999) and co-author of "Slipping Through the Cracks: The Status of Black Women" (1986) and "The State of Black America: In the Black Woman's Voice" (2008), which is the National Urban League's annual barometer of the conditions, experiences and opinions of African-Americans, providing the black female perspective of the challenges that currently confront the African-American community. It also presents the Equality Index and the National Urban League's groundbreaking Opportunity Compact, a comprehensive set of principles and social and economic policies of the United States.