Virginia Tech is honoring and remembering the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a series of events that began on Jan. 20. The theme for this year’s events is “The Fierce Urgency of Now.”

The keynote event will be held on Jan. 22 at 7:30 p.m. in the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre at the Moss Arts Center. It will feature members of the Central Park 5: Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Yusef Salaam. The group was the focus of a sensationalized trial in the Central Park jogger case in New York City leading to their conviction and imprisonment as teenagers in 1990, and subsequent exoneration in 2002.

Their case has been the subject of multiple documentary films, including an award-winning effort (The Central Park 5) involving Ken Burns, and, most recently, Netflix’s critically acclaimed dramatic miniseries “When They See Us,” directed by Ava Duvernay. In the aftermath of the latter work, the men have come to be known as the “Exonerated Five.”

The keynote event will be a panel discussion with the men, moderated by Brandy Faulkner,  a faculty member in the Department of Political Science.

Additional events and more details on all of the celebrations can be found on the Cultural and Community Centers website.

Written by Hallema Sharif