38th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration

This year’s Dr. Martin Luther King Contests focus: “We Must Speak.”

The Marcus Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee celebrates Dr. King’s Birthday annually since 1984. The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Celebration programming highlights the youth in our community who every year interpret Dr. King’s words through art, speech, and writing contests.

“Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate, but we must speak.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A Time to Break Silence, 4 April 1967; New York City.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an activist committed to peace, justice, and equality. Dr. King’s essential thoughts on nonviolence, social policy, integration, black nationalism, the ethics of love and hope, and his many testimonies have resonated over the past 38 years through the voices of our youth.

For the 2021 preliminary contests, educators are asked to familiarize students with Dr. King’s beliefs, words, and actions, focusing on this year’s theme. As students prepare their notable artwork, creative writings and eloquent speeches have them reflect and write about how it relates to themselves or others in their families, schools, neighborhoods, or world.