MLK, Jr. Holiday -- Monday, Jan. 16 -- Library CLOSED

Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Monday, January 16, 2012

The BSC Library will be CLOSED

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, many of us are unaware of the direct effect that his message had on BSC students. Marti Turnipseed, a BSC student, attended a meeting at the Ensley First Baptist Church, where she heard the Reverend King speak on the need to take a stand for justice. As a result she became the first white person to participate in the non-violent sit-ins at the segregated Birmingham Woolworth's Department Store lunch counters. For her courage to stand up for what she believed to be right, the college administration bowed to outside pressure and expelled her for a year. But Marti returned with her head held high to graduate from BSC in 1964 and then attend divinity school.

You can learn more about Martin Luther King, Jr. through the BSC Library catalogue. Marti Turnipseed's story and BSC's struggles through the civil rights era have been researched by Professor Bill Nicholas of our History Department; you can find her entry in the BSC yearbooks, available online.

--G. Hubbs, BSC Library

Good Friday March held on April 12, 1963. Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Rev. Ralph David Abernathy join Dr. King on a march for civil rights in Birmingham.

Photo from the Encyclopedia of Alabama.