The Yale Gospel Choir is coming to Hartford on Monday, January 20, 2020 for events commemorating the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday. This is your opportunity to celebrate the legacy of MLK while meeting and supporting members of the Yale Gospel Choir. All Yale Club of Hartford members, family and friends are invited to attend any or all of the following three events.
11:00 AM
The State Capitol, 210 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT; North Lobby
34th Annual National Liberty Bell Ringing Celebration and Awards Ceremony
Enter the West Side of Capitol through Capitol Security
FREE event. A free-will donation for Yale Gospel Choir is welcome (please see below).
1:00 PM
Annual Dr. MLK, Jr. Day Ceremony
The Greater Hartford Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance
Mount Olive Baptist Church, 20 Battles Street, Hartford, 06120 (corner of Battles & Main Streets)
Although this is a FREE event, it is being held at a Church, so an offering will be collected.
A free-will donation for Yale Gospel Choir is welcome (please see below).
2:30 PM
Salute Restaurant, 100 Trumbull Street, Hartford, CT 06103
Private reception and late lunch with the Yale Gospel Choir
The choir will perform a few musical selections and share a meal with YCH members.
This event offers the best opportunity to truly mix & mingle with the choir.
FREE event for YCH members. A free-will donation for Yale Gospel Choir is welcome.
We would love to have you join us!
Please pre-register by sending an email to hartford.yale.club@gmail.com or by clicking on the button below, so we will know where to expect and welcome you.
If you are unable to attend any of these events, or would like to help the Yale Gospel Choir meet its Annual Gospel Tour fundraising goal for their March 2020 tour, please consider making a donation by clicking on the links or button below:
To donate, please visit the YGCDonatePage or YGC’s Facebook page. For more information on the choir, please visit the YGC’s website.
We look forward to seeing you on Monday, January 20, 2020!
Did you know? MLK and Yale...
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. celebrated his 30th birthday while at Yale in January 1959. He spoke at Woolsey Hall on the future of the civil rights movement at the invitation of Yale's Undergraduate Lecture Committee. He is pictured (above, left) with Yale student David George Ball, Pierson College '60 cutting a birthday cake. Ball went on to write a book about the impact of King's visit, "A Marked Heart", and the picture above now hangs prominently in Yale's Pierson College dining hall.
Dr. King later returned to Yale in June 1964 when he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree (pictured above, right, with Yale President Kingman Brewster) at Commencement. But as Ray Hardman from NPR noted 54 years later in a King retrospective, "Days before the ceremony, it wasn't clear whether King would make it to New Haven. He was arrested for joining white civil rights leaders in the white section of a hotel dining room in St. Augustine, Florida. Also arrested in the incident was Yale's legendary Chaplain, the Reverend William Sloane Coffin." King was imprisoned, but as Bill Massa from Yale University Library noted, “He was released to come to Yale, because Yale does require that anyone who receives an honorary degree be present for that degree.” According to NPR, many in the press referred to Yale's granting of a degree as posting bail for King.
