Civil rights leader Martin Luther King III to speak at pair of events in Rockland

Civil rights leader and community activist Martin Luther King III will be making two appearances in Rockland County on Monday.

He'll be the guest speaker at Rockland County's Civil and Human Rights Hall of Fame induction at 9 a.m. at Rockland County Health Complex in Pomona. The event is now closed, as the RSVP window has ended.

Later that day, King will speak at a Black History Month Fireside Chat at 2 p.m. at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill. The invitation-only event is for college students. According to the college, King will speak with the audience about the intersection of social justice and community building.

King, the oldest son of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, was just 10 years old when his father was assassinated in 1968. He went on to become a civil rights leader and human rights activist himself after he graduated from Morehouse College, his father and grandfather's alma mater, in 1979.

Black History Month: Events around the Lower Hudson Valley

King was the first of his family to be elected to political office in 1986, winning a seat on the Fulton County Commission in Georgia. He was also the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights organization his father founded in 1957, from 1997 to 2004. King spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

Since the start of his career, King has spoken on many civil and human rights issues, including South African apartheid, the death penalty, war and fair labor rights. He has also spoken out against police brutality − notably in 2014 when Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, and when George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Martin Luther King III to speak at Rockland NY events