Associate professor of history and UK alumnus Gerald Smith hopes to continue researching the connection between King and religion.

Two upcoming events at the University of Kentucky will celebrate the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela.

Bernard LaFayette Jr., an associate of Martin Luther King Jr., will speak on his leadership experience in the voting rights movement in Selma, Ala. on March 25.

On Jan. 19, the Sunday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the students, faculty and staff affiliated with the King Center have organized a vigil and march that will take participants on a journey through time.

Gerald Smith has spent a lifetime studying the nation’s African-American leaders, including the formative years of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Students serve as history-detectives, acquiring information from community leaders, local archivists and historians from across the U.S., to accumulate relevant information never analyzed concurrently. They developed and debated historical interpretations of the primary sources they found and engaged in both online and classroom discussions.