MSU
After growing up in Atlanta, in the 1960s, Donzaleigh Abernathy vividly can recollect events of the civil rights movement. She recalls a childhood with “white” and “colored” drinking fountains, no guarantee to receive an education and not being “allowed” to step foot in the public library.
Author and actress Donzaleigh Abernathy, daughter of civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy, also remembers the day her “Uncle Martin,” known to most as Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated.
On Thursday evening at Kellogg Center, Donzaleigh Abernathy stood before members of the MSU community and told her story; the untold story of her father and King, and the civil rights movement. Abernathy said she was glad to be a part of the 13th-annual “Slavery to Freedom: An American Odyssey” visiting lecture series organized by the College of Osteopathic Medicine to celebrate Black History Month.
About 200 people attended Thursday’s event, and crowd members were attentive and intrigued by Donzaleigh Abernathy’s stories — including stories of her father, Ralph Abernathy, who was the “thinker and planner” next to King.