Black Lives Matter co-founder to speak at KU campus this week

A co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement will be at KU this week to speak about her art and activism.

Patrisse Cullors will present two free public programs on Wednesday and Thursday at the Lawrence campus of the University of Kansas.

At 4 p.m. Wednesday at the Spencer Museum of Art, Cullors will perform “Opening Up,” which will include Yoruba prayers that are based off a religion and culture of West Africa. The event, which will begin outdoors in front of the museum and then move inside to gallery space will honor and remember the lives and experiences of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Moberly, KU said in a press release.

The Spencer Museum currently features exhibitions about Mamie Till-Moberly and her son Emmett, who was murdered in a racial killing in 1955 in Mississippi.

At 7 p.m. Thursday at Stauffer-Flint Hall, Cullors will give a free lecture titled “Our Collective Imagination Will Set us Free,” where she will discuss topics including art, the abolition movement and the power of human imagination, KU said in a press release. The event also will include a moderated Q&A session.

Cullors, a teacher by trade, is widely credited with being one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the first to use the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag in 2013.

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