Ohio Northern University will hold a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration week with a number of activities commemorating the civil rights leader. The ONU Cultural and Special Events Committee and the Office of Multicultural Development are sponsoring these events, which begin on Tuesday, Jan. 22.

• There will be no classes at ONU on Monday, Jan. 21, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. King spoke at ONU on Jan. 11, 1968, in one of his final appearances on a college campus before being assassinated in April later that year.

• A cultural conversation hour, moderated by Reginald Onyido, ONU admissions counselor and multicultural advisor, and David MacDonald, university chaplain, is scheduled for room 301 of Heterick Memorial Library on Tuesday from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.

• On Wednesday, a presentation featuring artifacts from King’s visit to ONU will take place on the first floor of Heterick. There will be two sessions: one at 10 a.m. and a second at 2 p.m. Both sessions are open to the public.
   
• Ellis Cose, award-winning journalist and author, will speak in ONU’s McIntosh Ballroom on Thursday, Jan. 24, at 7 p.m. This event also is free and open to the public.

A columnist and contributing editor for Newsweek magazine from 1993 to 2010 and former chairman of the editorial board and editorial page editor of the New York Daily News, Cose began his journalism career as a weekly columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, becoming, at the age of 19, the youngest editorial page columnist ever employed by a major Chicago daily. He went on to become an editor and national correspondent for the paper.

In addition, Cose has been a contributor and press critic for Time magazine, president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Journalism Education, chief writer on management and workplace issues for USA Today (where he has also served as an occasional columnist and member of the board of contributors), and a member of the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press.

Cose also is an author of several books of national and international concern. He has authored numerous books on race, including “The End of Anger,” a meditation on race, class and privilege; “Bone to Pick: On Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation and Revenge,” a wide-ranging look at a number of societies and their ways of coping with cruelty and pain; “The Envy of the World,” an in-depth essay on the state of black men in America; “The Rage of a Privileged Class,” a book-length essay on race in America; and “Color-Blind: Seeing Beyond Race in a Race-Obsessed World” an exploration of America’s continuing obsession with race.

In May 2004, the Rockefeller Foundation issued “Beyond Brown v. Board: The Final Battle for Excellence in American Education,” a major report authored by Cose on the legacy of the historic school desegregation decision and the current challenges facing American educators.

A popular campus lecturer and public speaker, Cose is an independent radio producer. His debut radio production effort, “Against the Odds,” aired in 2008 in more than 100 radio markets in the United States. He followed this with a four-part series in 2009, which also aired in top radio markets across the United States.

• Finally, the week concludes with a concert by The Soul Rebels Brass Band in the Freed Center for the Performing Arts on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 for general admission and $7 for ONU students and children. The Freed Center box office is open Monday through Friday from noon to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Phone orders are accepted with American Express, MasterCard, VISA or Discover by calling 419-772-1900. Tickets also are available online at www.freedcenter.com