This service, in commemoration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will include readings from his speeches and other writings as well as musical selections curated by Director of Music Kent Tritle. The Reverend Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, minister and social activist, will preach.

St. Louis native Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou is an author, documentary filmmaker, organizer, pastor and theologian who serves as Pastor for Formation and Justice at the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Boston, MA.

The Reverend was raised in St. Louis and began his ministry at the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in the mid ‘90s, taught alternatives to gang violence at Stevens Middle School, and directed the Fellowship Center in the Cochran Housing Project.

Following Hurricane Katrina, Rev. Sekou moved to New Orleans, founding the local Interfaith Worker Justice Center. In 2006, the Institute for Policy Studies appointed Sekou its first Associate Fellow in Religion and Justice. He was a founding national coordinator for Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq (CALC-I), which represented over 300 faith-based institutions and organizations.

Sekou was Scholar in Residence at Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Education and Research Institute in 2014, before going to Ferguson in mid-August on behalf of the Fellowship of Reconciliation to assist with organizing efforts alongside local and national groups.

He is the author of two collections of essays: urbansouls and Gods, Gays, and Guns: Essays on Religion and the Future of Democracy, as well as the forthcoming Riot Music: British Hip Hop, Race, and the Politics of Meaning.