Learn and connect this MLK Day at these 4 events

Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's Saturday morning newsletter, The Weekender. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here. 

This Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

You’d have been able to visit our country’s national parks without paying had the Trump administration not scrubbed MLK Day and Juneteenth from its calendar of admission-free dates. (It did so while adding Flag Day, which happens to be the president’s birthday.)

And, even as the federal government makes attempts to stifle engagement with America’s history — like warning the Smithsonian to remove exhibits of "improper ideology"— reflections on the Black American experience and King’s civil rights activism endure across Boston.

Our new winter arts guides feature several exhibits, shows and events happening this weekend where you can get involved and feel connected to history and its lessons for the present day.

Our arts team will roll out more guides next week, which you can find here. In the meantime, here’s our MLK Day editor’s picks:

Written by Najee Brown, artistic director of the Multicultural Arts Center, "Stokely and Martin" is a play that imagines a fictional conversation between Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), a leader in the American civil rights and global pan-African movements who, like King, was considered controversial in the 1960s. Despite their shared mission, King and Carmichael had different approaches to civil rights activism, which unfold during the play through dialogue and music. "'Stokely and Martin' explores what it means to sit across from someone you love, disagree with, and still choose to stay in the conversation," center staffers wrote on Instagram.

Presented by Company One Theatre and the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, “The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar)” examines a dirty dealing of the 18th and 19th centuries: grave robbing. During this era, Black cemeteries were the target of grave robbers who would steal corpses to use as medical cadavers. In a story that switches between the 1800s and modern day, we see a family try to protect their deceased loved one’s grave, and their descendants — living on the same land — who uncover the gruesome history 200 years later. “At its core, the show asks how we live with a history we cannot change,” wrote theater critic Jacquinn Sinclair in this review.

Zora J Murff’s “RACE/HUSTLE” exhibit at MASS MoCA implores visitors to scrutinize institutional racism through photographs, collages, videos and visual art. Murff, who is based in Oregon, “investigates systemic oppression, political violence and anti-Blackness” through his art and photography, writes WBUR’s Maddie Browning. Murff’s work is also informed by his experience as a social worker.

Last but not least: an annual favorite, the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra’s MLK Day concert, produced in collaboration with Boston’s Museum of African American History and the city’s Office of Arts and Culture. This year’s event will take place at 1 p.m. at Faneuil Hall and feature music, readings and remarks honoring King’s memory. Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah, Boston’s poet laureate, will also deliver a keynote speech.

P.S. — Another way to reflect on King’s legacy that doesn’t require a ticket: This thoughtful Cognoscenti essay from 2025 by Tony Clark, which challenges readers to look at King’s life and civil rights work to see him as a “fearless truth-teller” calling for “radical change.”