PORT ANGELES — Thursday’s Studium Generale presentation will focus on Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy in current events, especially the emphasis on non-violent action during the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation protests in 2016.
In addition to the Studium General presentation at 12:35 p.m. in the Little Theater at the Port Angeles campus of Peninsula College, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd., the college’s Magic of Cinema will screen the film, “100 Years: One Woman’s Fight for Justice” in Maier Hall at 7 p.m. Thursday.
The mid-day presentation is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Kate Reavey, kreavey@pencol.edu.
Tickets for the evening film are $5 at the door for general admission, and free for students. For more information contact Sean Gomez at sgomez@pencol.edu or 360-417-6464.
Each year, Peninsula College honors King, a civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968, with a lecture, performance, or poetry reading centered on his legacy as part of the Studium Generale series, college officials said.
This year, a panel presentation and discussion will “help recognize the relevance of Dr. King’s emphasis on non-violent direct action,” Reavey said, and the ways in which the protesters in South Dakota carried out steps to remain non-violent in the face of the response to their presence.
Thousands of protesters opposed the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline under Lake Oahe. The pipeline would transfer oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region through South Dakota and Iowa into Illinois. The $3.7 billion pipeline would transport about 470,000 barrels of domestic crude oil a day.
Nearly all of the 1,172-mile pipeline has been built by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners except for a mile-long section across federal land and beneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir.
On Dec. 4, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it would reject a request for an easement of the pipeline under Lake Oahe, effectively stopping it. However, President-elect Donald Trump has said he favors the pipeline.
Last August, Lower Elwha Klallam Chairwoman Frances Charles traveled to Standing Rock to present the Sioux with a flag, which represents the tribe’s commitment to support the Sioux and the protests.
Guest speakers at the Studium Generale presentation will include Mark “Hammer Time” Charles, Jerry Foster, and Laz Tinoco, of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe; Bill and William Jevne, Sequim residents; and Reavey, a Peninsula College faculty member whose doctoral degree includes a specialization in MLK studies.
King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and his speech that was later titled “Staying Awake During a Great Revolution” will be central references.
Reavey will outline some historical parallels, and then the five individuals who recently traveled to Standing Rock will present brief accounts of their decisions to protest, their experiences there, and their perspectives on the past as well as the future of non-violent action.
Bill Jevne, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, chose to make the long journey to participate in the direct action of veterans circling the Native American protesters to protect them.
Mark Charles is no stranger to nonviolent protests. He became involved in “Idle No More” — a grassroots movement for indigenous sovereignty, indigenous rights and respect for treaties — and made the long drive to stand with the Sioux at Standing Rock.
The film later that evening depicts the story of Elouise Cobell, who filed the largest class action lawsuit ever filed against the federal government, which alleged the mismanagement of lands by the Department of the Interior, and won a $3.4 billion settlement for 300,000 Native Americans.
The film describes Cobell as an iconic figure in history “who simply refuse(d) to get to the back of the bus.”
