Beginning with the Rosa Parks Lecture on Social Justice and Activism in 2007 and annually since 2009 with the Martin Luther King Lecture Series, the Division of Diversity and Inclusion honors these individuals’ tremendous contributions to furthering civil rights by brining national thought leaders to campus, who provide insight and advocacy to current civil rights issues of education, economic and justice system inequalities.

The 2018 speaker Dr. Joy DeGruy is the author of the groundbreaking book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome - America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing which addresses the residual impacts of trauma on African descendants in the Americas.