Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture: Tressie McMillan Cottom

Speaking in Kanbar Auditorium on January 31, 2026, McMillan Cottom called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. one of the best rhetoricians, writers, and philosophers ever produced.

"His political vision was as sharp and clear and unflinching as just about anybody I could imagine honoring today," she said. "Not only was his sight clear, he was surrounded by men and especially women like [civil and human rights activist] Ella Baker who tested his clarity constantly."

Following her talk, McMillan Cottom spent time talking with students at a reception in Main Lounge, Moulton Union.

McMillan Cottom's work has earned national and international recognition for the urgency and depth of its incisive critical analysis of technology, higher education, culture, media, class, race, and gender. She was named the 2023 recipient of the Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize by Brandeis University for her "critical perspective and analysis to some of the greatest social challenges we face today." She also earned the 2025 Thomas Wolfe Prize and was a 2025-2026 National Humanities Center Fellow. Her most recent book, THICK: And Other Essays, was just listed as one of the thirty best nonfiction books of the last thirty years by the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture with Tressie McMillan Cottom was sponsored by Bowdoin's Office of Inclusion and Diversity .