Matt Rothschild, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, will be guest speaker at the annual birthday observance of Dr. Martin Luther King beginning at 1 p.m. Jan. 25.
The free program is open to the public and will be held at the Spring Green Community Center, 117 S. Washington St. (Note the change of venue from previous programs.) Beverages and cake will be served.
“Making Democracy Real” is the title of Rothschild’s talk. In his Riverside Church speech in 1967, Dr. King spoke about “our failure to make democracy.” He said, “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism.” Rothschild will speak about how to combat poverty, racism and militarism, and make democracy real.
Since 1995, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign tracked and exposed the problem of money in Wisconsin politics. Prior to joining the Democracy Campaign in 2015, Rothschild was editor and publisher at The Progressive magazine, where he worked for 32 years. With the Democracy Campaign, he travels the state seeking to ban gerrymandering and to get money out of politics. Rothschild testifies at the state capitol; his op-eds appear regularly in state publications; and he is heard on Wisconsin Public Radio, the Devils Advocates, WOJB in Hayward, WORT in Madison and other stations around the state.
An avid birdwatcher, Rothschild lives with his wife, Jean, in the Town of Dunn, just south of Madison.
The late Dr. King was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was murdered by an assassin in 1968. An ordained Baptist minister, he led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was a non-violence advocate and an internationally respected civil rights leader.
Free-will donations will be accepted to cover costs of the annual observance, hosted by an ad hoc group of River Valley residents. For more information, contact David Giffey at (608) 753-2199.