Salt Lake City to Declare Civil Rights Activist Recognition Day
Event includes panel discussion, resolution and award ceremony to honor civil rights activists

SALT LAKE CITY – Twenty-five Salt Lake City residents who made important contributions to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ‘60s will be honored at a private event at The Leonardo, 209 E. 500 South, on Friday, Jan. 20, at 7 p.m.  Julian Bond, civil rights leader and former chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Jeanetta Williams, director of the NAACP Salt Lake City Branch, will recognize the activists who struggled to end segregation and discrimination and expand American democracy. 

The event will include a panel discussion with Bond, and Matt Heron and Tamio Wakayama, activist photographers whose photographs are featured in The Leonardo’s current photographic exhibition, This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement, which will be on display at the museum through May 2012. Pastor France Davis of the Cavalry Baptist Church will moderate the discussion.

Following the panel discussion, Salt Lake City Council Chair Søren Simonson will issue an official resolution declaring January 20 as Salt Lake City Civil Rights Activist Recognition Day. The event will conclude with an awards ceremony and recognition of local activists.

“Many of our own residents extended themselves for the cause of civil rights,” said Mayor Ralph Becker. “Declaring a day to recognize these activists provides an opportunity to honor their efforts and recommit ourselves to the principles of civil rights and equality for all.”

For more details, call (801) 230-9399, or visit www.theleonardo.org.

WHO:          Julian Bond, civil rights leader and former NAACP chair
                        Jeanetta Williams, director of the SLC-NAACP
                        Pastor France Davis, Calvary Baptist Church

                        Salt Lake City Council Chair Søren Simonson

WHAT:       Salt Lake City Civil Rights Activist Recognition Day

                        Panel Discussion and Recognition

                        This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement,

WHEN:       Friday, January 20, 2012, at 7 p.m.

WHERE:   The Leonardo
                       209 East 500 South, Salt Lake City

Media welcome to attend, photograph and film all events