‘Black Lives Matter’ Founder to Speak at GVSU

Grand Valley State University's 2016 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Week will feature the social activist behind #BlackLivesMatter.

Patrisse Cullors is a Los Angeles-based social activist who, with two other people, started the movement #BlackLivesMatter in 2013. The movement was inspired by the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Cullors works as the truth and reinvestment campaign director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

Touré will also speak at GVSU. He is a former NBC contributor, former MSNBC co-host of "The Cycle," a contributing editor to "Rolling Stone," and the author of several books, including "Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now."

Commemoration week activities will run January 18-23.

Touré is the keynote speaker on Monday, January 18 at 1:30PM, in the Fieldhouse on the Allendale Campus; Cullors will give a presentation on January 20 at 4:30PM at the Kirkhof Center on the Allendale Campus, which will be simulcast to an audience in the Eberhard Center on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus.

All events are free and open to the public.

It is the fourth year that GVSU classes have been canceled on the King holiday.

Touré will also speak on January 18 at the 30th annual Grand Rapids Community College program and on January 19 at Davenport University.