Worldhouse @ Morehouse Webcast

Click here for the live webcast. (Start time is 10 a.m. EST) Forty years to the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (Morehouse class of 1948), Morehouse College will serve as the international epicenter for a global webcast, “World House: Connecting the Global Community,” that will bring together students, scholars, ambassadors and activists to revitalize King’s vision of the “World House.” The webcast will include discussion and performances from Morehouse College; Beijing, China; Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Baroda, India and the University of Florida.

And it will all take place on the Internet.

Beginning on Friday, April 4, 2008, and continuing every Friday in April, World House: Connecting the Global Community will connect over an internationally-distributed, real-time network to bring together a diverse community that literally spans the globe

Originating from the Bank of America Auditorium, Executive Conference Center, this historical event is presented by The Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection; the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at Morehouse; and the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida.

Each Friday will focus on one of the four challenges King makes in his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? The World House concept is inspired by the chapter titled “World House,” where King called for the world to transcend race, class, nation and religion to embrace the world house vision; to eradicate the triple evils of racism, poverty and militarism; to curb excessive materialism and shift from a “thing”-oriented society to a “people”-oriented society; and to resist social injustice and resolve conflicts through love embodied in the spirit of non-violence.

King may well have regarded the “World House” as his most important single writing, but unlike the “I Have a Dream” speech or “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” this work is virtually unknown.

But it has a home at Morehouse College.

This important work is part of The Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, a 10,000-piece collection of King’s works and personal writings. The collection came to Morehouse after a group of Atlanta business and political leaders, led by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, raised $32 million for its purchase. The deal allowed the collection to come home to Morehouse and Atlanta, the epicenter of the civil rights movement and King’s birthplace.

Walter E. Fluker, interim director of The Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection and executive director of the Leadership Center at Morehouse College, will host a segment on April 4 from Beijing.

“I think this is an innovative and distinctive strategy that has brought together the entire community at Morehouse,” Fluker said. “We cannot ignore the last prophetic ascendance of Martin Luther King Jr. when he told us we inherited a larger house – a world house – where we can’t live apart.”