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Maryville University’s Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration will be held at noon, on Jan. 28, in the University Auditorium. The program will feature guest speaker Rev. Starsky D. Wilson, co-chair of the Ferguson Commission, who will discuss ways to move St. Louis forward following the unrest in the wake of the death of Michael Brown in 2014.

Nina Caldwell, EdD, vice president for student life at Maryville University, will facilitate the discussion. The event is free and open to the public.

The Ferguson Commission is an independent body appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon to study the underlying social and economic conditions which fueled unrest following Brown’s death, and to recommend ways to create positive change in the St. Louis region. Last September, the group released the ground-breaking report, Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity, which calls for sweeping changes in policing, the courts, child well-being, and economic mobility.

Wilson is president and CEO of Deaconess Foundation, a faith-based grant making organization devoted to making child well-being a civic priority in the St. Louis region. Under Wilson’s leadership, a dynamic community capacity building model has developed. The model aligns policy advocacy, organizing and community engagement with grant-making. He is also pastor of Saint John’s Church, where he has led congregational activism on myriad issues, and serves as co-chair of the Ferguson Commission.