The Jewish community will hold a Martin Luther King, Jr. event, Continuing the Search for Civil Rights and Social Justice, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 14 at the Jewish Community Center Staenberg Family Complex’s Arts & Education Building, 2 Millstone Campus Drive. The program is presented by the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival in partnership with the Jewish Community Relations Council’s Michael and Barbara Newmark Institute for Human Relations.

Vida “Sister” Prince will speak about her book, “That’s the Way it Was: Stories of Struggle, Survival and Self-Respect in Twentieth Century Black St. Louis.”  Segregation was a way of life in St. Louis, once called “the most southern city in the north.”  Chairman of the Oral History Project at the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center, Prince offers 13 oral histories from the St. Louis African American community, describing the daily  struggles and pervasive racism faced; and the strong self-respect they built on their own terms. 

T.K. Thorne, the former precinct captain of the Birmingham police Department, will speak about her book, “Last Chance for Justice: How Relentless Investigators Uncovered New Evidence Convicting the Birmingham Church Bombers.” Thorne gives an insider’s view of the investigation behind the 50-year-old civil rights cold case. 

Introducing the speakers is Donald M. Suggs, publisher of The St. Louis American since the early 1980s. Under his leadership, the paper moved from being a limited circulation paid newspaper to a widely-circulated free weekly paper, enabling it to effectively and efficiently reach the rapidly growing African-American population in the St. Louis area. 

Tickets are $8 and can be purchased in advance by calling the Jewish Book Festival hotline at 314-442-3299 or purchased at the door.