Writer and Poet Tongo-Eisen Martin will deliver a special keynote address for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

In the face of a system that will not likely survive too many more generations; through poetry and exposition we will investigate the trajectories of liberation for Black people in the United States and what it will require of our imagination and commitment.

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker and educator who has organized against mass incarceration and extra-judicial killing of Black people throughout the United States. He has taught in detention centers from New York’s Rikers Island to California county jails.

He designed curricula for oppressed people’s education projects from San Francisco to South Africa. His latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. He is also a revolutionary poet who uses his craft to create liberated territory wherever he performs and teaches. His latest book of poems, titled Heaven Is All Goodbyes, has been nominated for a California Book Award. He recently lived and organized around issues of human rights and self-determination in Jackson, MS.