MLK 2025

Join us on Saturday, January 11, for our annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event where we'll celebrate King's life and legacy.

This year we will host special guest speaker, Laurence Ralph Ph.D., award-winning author, filmmaker, Princeton University Professor of Human Rights and Professor of Anthropology and Public Affairs, and the Co-Director of the Center on Transnational Policing.

We'll also pay special tribute to Susan Lee J.D., Chief Strategy and Policy Officer at Chicago CRED, for her groundbreaking work in reducing violence and supporting vulnerable populations across the country through building sustainable infrastructure for the CVI field, specifically in Los Angeles and Chicago.

Dr. Ralph and Dr. Lee will join a panel including Dr. Selwyn Rogers, Founding Director of the UChicago Medicine Trauma Center, and Nonviolence Chicago Outreach Worker, Marcus Simpson, to discuss Dr. King's vision of nonviolence while highlighting the vital role in fostering peace, addressing systemic inequities, and building bridges of understanding and humanity in the fight against violence.

After the discussion, guests are invited to participate in a collaborative art installation led by artist and Co-Founder of the Chicago Creative Initiative, Eric Harold. Eric will guide an art project where you'll help paint your vision of peace under the themes of connection, equity, and healing.

Lunch will be provided.

Please RSVP.

GET TO KNOW OUR FEATURED GUESTS

Laurence Ralph is a professor, writer, and filmmaker. His work explores how police abuse, mass incarceration, and the drug trade make injury and premature death seem natural for people of color. His first book, Renegade Dreams, received the C. Wright Mills Award and the J.I. Staley Prize. His second book, The Torture Letters, explores a decades-long scandal in which hundreds of Black men were tortured in police custody. The Torture Letters is also the name of his award-winning, animated short film, which is featured in The New York Times Op-Doc series. Laurence’s latest book, Sito: An American Teenager and the City that Failed Him, was released in 2024 by Grand Central Publishing. Laurence’s work has been featured in The Paris Review, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Chicago Review of Books, Boston Review and Literary Hub, to name a few.

Laurence has held tenured appointments in the African & African American studies and anthropology departments at Harvard. Ralph has been awarded many fellowships for his work, some of which include the Guggenheim  and Carnegie Fellowships, as well as grants from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation, and the National Research Council of the National Academies. He is a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Susan Lee, JD, has worked in neighborhood revitalization and violence prevention for over 20 years. She developed the first ever CVI training platform, Urban Peace Academy, for violence prevention practitioners to execute a comprehensive public health approach to violence reduction in Los Angeles. She helped to develop and implement relationship-based policing strategies, policies and practices to transform police and community relations. Currently Susan is the Chief Strategy and Policy Officer at Chicago CRED. Susan is widely considered a subject matter expert in public safety, relationship-based policing, community organizing, juvenile justice, reentry, violence prevention, and law and systems change.

Selwyn O. Rogers Jr., MD, MPH, FACS, is a widely respected surgeon and public health expert. As founding director of the University of Chicago Medicine Trauma Center, Selwyn is building an interdisciplinary team of specialists to treat patients who suffer injury from life-threatening events, such as car crashes, serious falls and gun violence. His team works with leaders in the city's trauma network to expand trauma care on the South Side. Selwyn also currently serves as Co-Vice Chair on the Board of the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.

The Chicago Creative Initiative is an Illinois-registered nonprofit corporation dedicated to the empowerment of Chicago communities, particularly youth and underserved populations. Through participatory educational art programs guided by experienced professionals, the organization aims to foster creativity, cultural expression, and social cohesion, providing resources and opportunities that might otherwise be inaccessible.

Eric Harold is a Logan Square, Chicago-based artist, designer, muralist, fabricator, and community leader. With deep

roots in creative arts and public service, Eric leverages his experience to inspire and empower communities through

impactful public art and educational programs. You can see some of Eric's work at https://www.instagram.com/ericharoldx/.