Award for Documentary Film on Martin Luther King Jr's 1967 Visit to Newcastle

At the Royal Television Society Awards last week, the winner in the Best Factual Production category went to A King’s Speech, a documentary about Martin Luther King Jr’s 1967 visit to Newcastle. The documentary was based largely on research conducted by Brian Ward, Northumbria’s Professor in American Studies and a leading expert in the history of the US civil rights movement. In the early 1990s, Brian discovered long-lost footage of the unscheduled speech that King gave in Newcastle and later wrote a scholarly account of the circumstances surrounding King's visit. Thanks to the documentary, narrated by Lenny Henry and produced by David Morrison for BBC North East, public awareness of King’s trip to Newcastle and of his moving speech is growing once again.

If you want to learn more about King’s visit and about the making of this award-winning documentary Brian and BBC Senior Producer Murphy Cobbing will be discussing them at the Great North Museum at 7pm on April 24, 2015. The event will also include music, a wine reception, and screenings of the documentary and King’s speech.

Admission to A King’s Speech on Tyneside: Remembering Martin Luther King’s Historic Visit to Newcastle is free, but you will need to book a place. (For more details, see here.)

This event is part of the Journey to Justice project on the US civil rights movement and its links to struggles for social justice in the North East which will be coming to venues around Tyneside this Spring.