Calvin Butts At College

The Rev. Calvin O. Butts 3d, the pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, will be the keynote speaker at Southampton College's first Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration next Thursday. The talk will also start the celebration of February as Black History Month.

Dr. Butts, whose talk will begin at 7 p.m. in the college's Fine Arts Theatre, has been a prominent civil rights activist since the 1960s. He helped establish the Thurgood Marshall Academy, has taught urban affairs at City College and black church history at Fordham University, is a board member of the United Way, and led a group that painted over liquor and cigarette ads displayed on inner city buildings.

Gospel Music, Too

He holds degrees from Morehouse College, Union Theological Seminary, and Drew University. The East End National Organization for Women is participating in Dr. Butts's presentation, and the organization's president, Melissa A. Walton, will introduce him.

Next Thursday's celebration will also include gospel music performed by Leon's Inner Voices and a reception with college faculty, staff, students, and members of the community. Winners of an essay contest headed by John Strong, a history professor at the college, will also be announced.

The celebration of Black History Month will continue at the college on Feb. 19, when Jerry Domatob and Wallace Smith will discuss "The Media and Identity: How the Media Inhibits People's Identity." Dr. Domatob is the communications coordinator and an assistant professor of communications, and Dr. Smith is the director of Southampton College's radio station WPBX.

On Feb. 23, Dr. Allison Dorsey, an assistant professor of history at Swarthmore College, will discuss the important roles black women played in the postbellum South. And, on Feb. 26, a concert featuring Sanga of the Valley and Drums of Life will bring the sounds of such musical traditions as calypso, reggae, rhythm and blues, and New Age.