River Valley Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observance
Eric Tadsen
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Executive Director Matt Rothschild.
press release: 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. Saturday, January 25, 2020. The program will be held at the Spring Green Community Center, 117 N. Washington Street. (Please note the change of venue from previous programs). Beverages and cake will be served. The event is free and open to the public.
“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 the Madison Capital Times, Urban Milwaukee, The Wisconsin Examiner, and occasionally in the Wisconsin State Journal; 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 plays chess, tennis, and Texas Holdem, and 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. The pursuit of justice in the 21st Century U.S. mirrors concerns and ideas addressed more than 50 years ago by Dr. King.
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.