#97-01-11
For Release: 1-24-97
Contact: Peter Bailley

Carmelita Whitaker, diversity program assistant for Habitat for Humanity International, will present Knox College's 1997 Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Lecture, "Building Diversity in the Community Through Habitat," at 4 p.m., Monday, Feb. 3 in the Common Room of Old Main. It is free and open to the public.

Whitaker, who began as a volunteer for Habitat while she was in college, now travels nationwide, helping local Habitat chapters to expand and diversify.

Based in Americus, Georgia, Habitat International is a non-profit organization which builds housing for low-income families. The Knox College chapter of Habitat for Humanity is a student organization that works with the Knox County chapter.

The annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Lecture at Knox College is sponsored by the Nixon Committee on Religious Life, ABLE Center for Black Culture, and the Office of Intercultural Life.

Founded in 1837, Knox is an independent, four-year, liberal arts college, located in Galesburg, Illinois, with 1,100 students from 42 states and 33 nations. Knox's "Old Main," a National Historic Landmark, is the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.