Event Calendar
Lecture | From Martin Luther to Martin Luther King, Jr
Join the American Council on Germany in Atlanta and the Goethe-Zentrum Atlanta for a lecture by Prof. Dr. Michael Haspel entitled "From Martin Luther to Martin Luther King, Jr." on Thursday, June 29, 6:30pm.
Martin Luther King, Jr. did not bear his name from the beginning. It was not before his father had visited Berlin in 1934 for the conference of the Baptist World Alliance that he renamed himself and his oldest son from Michael to Martin. When King, Jr. visited Berlin himself in 1964 he told his audiences: “I am happy that my parents decided to name me after the great Reformer”. And he argued, that the motivation of the activists in the civil rights struggle is the same as Martin Luther’s objecting to recall his teachings 1521 at the Imperial Diet: “Our only explanation can be, that we were gripped by God in this holy kairos; our only response could be that of Martin Luther, “Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.” The lecture will explore how Martin Luther King, Jr. used insights of Martin Luther and the reformation for his motivation and concept for the struggle for freedom, justice and equality.
A wine and cheese will start at 6:30pm with the program starting at 7:00pm.
About Prof. Michael Haspel
Prof. Dr. Michael Haspel is Executive Director of the Evangelische Akademie Thüringen in Neudietendorf near Erfurt, Thuringia, and holds an extraordinary professorship in systematic theology at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. His research interests include social ethics, peace ethics, human rights, and church and society. In his dissertation, he compared the role the Protestant churches in former East Germany played in the democracy movement to the role of black churches in the civil rights movement.
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