Dr. King to be celebrated at "A Night of the Arts"

BEAVER FALLS, PA (01/07/2013)(readMedia)-- Geneva College's Multicultural Student Services (MSS) office will host "A Night of the Arts in Honor of Martin Luther King: The Man. The Vision. The Dream." on Monday, January 21, 2013. The event includes various reflections on Dr. King and will be held at 7 p.m. in Skye Lounge of the Student Center.

"A Night of the Arts" will feature singer and civil rights figure Miss Rutha Harris. A lifelong resident of Albany, GA, Harris joined the Albany Movement and the Original Freedom Singers in 1961. She traveled over fifty thousand miles with that group, singing and raising funds for The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. In 1961-62, Harris was jailed four times during the Albany Movement along with Dr. King.

In addition to the Freedom Singers, Harris has recorded with the Landmark Gospel Singers, Georgia Mass Choir and Whitney Houston. She was selected to perform as a member of the Georgia Mass Choir in Houston's 1996 movie, The Preacher's Wife. Two years later, she founded The Albany Civil Rights Museum Freedom Singers, which continues to perform to this day.

Among her many awards, Harris received the 2001 Martin Luther King Dream Award. She performed in Pittsburgh at the 50th year celebration of Brown vs. Board of Education and in Washington D.C. for "In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from The Civil Rights Movement."

The event also includes live music by Pittsburgh's COL Jazz band, which is a project of Center Of Life, a faith-based community empowerment organization. The members of COL Jazz are young people who are given the opportunity to develop their talents as musicians, engineers and equipment managers at a professional level.

This purpose of this annual celebration, which began in 2012, "is to have a time for people to engage the life and works of Martin Luther King, Jr. in a variety of ways," said Director of MSS Kathy Kinzer-Downs "This evening is an expression of the arts, and provides an opportunity for the campus and community to gather together to celebrate Dr. King."

"A Night of the Arts" is free and open to the students, faculty and staff of Geneva College, as well as everyone in the surrounding Beaver County communities. Hors d'oeuvres will be provided.

Geneva College is a comprehensive Christian college of the arts, sciences and professional studies. Founded in the tradition of the Reformed Christian faith, Geneva prepares students to serve Christ in all areas of society: work, family and the church. Geneva College's philosophy of education is based on the Foundational Concepts of Christian Higher Education. Geneva is a founding member of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU).