Description

Martin Luther King Jr. Event at South Puget Sound Community College January 16, 2026, 7:30 p.m. 

Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts Main Stage (Olympia Campus, Building 21)

SPSCC invites you to attend its annual Martin Luther King Jr. community event featuring keynote speaker Marc Bamuthi Joseph, one of the nation’s most vital voices at the intersection of arts and social justice. He will deliver a keynote titled “Socially Responsive and Responsible Community-Building.” 

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a spoken-word poet, dancer, playwright, and actor whose work explores the intersection of art and social justice. He co-founded the Life is Living Festival for Youth Speaks and created the installation Black Joy in the Hour of Chaos for Creative Time. His opera libretto We Shall Not Be Moved was named one of The New York Times’ “Best Classical Music Performances” of 2017, and his newest opera, Watch Night, premiered under the direction of Bill T. Jones in 2023. Bamuthi’s piece The Just and the Blind debuted at Carnegie Hall in 2019, and he appears in HBO’s adaptation of Between the World and Me. A proud Morehouse College alumnus, Bamuthi received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the California College of Arts in 2022. 

Free admission (no tickets required) and free parking on campus.