Antioch College Celebrates Coretta Scott King’s Birthday and 60th Anniversary of Bayard Rustin’s Speech on Campus with a Performance Collage.

When: April 27, 2025, 6:30pm
Where: Foundry Theater, 920 Corry Street, Yellow Springs, OH 45387
Tickets: By Donation

Antioch College’s Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom invites you to a performance collage, “Loving is the Key: A Performance Collage about Bayard Rustin and Coretta Scott King,” in celebration of Coretta Scott King’s birthday and the 60th anniversary of Bayard Rustin’s 1965 speech at the college. The performance will take place at the Foundry Theater on  April 27, 2025  at 6:30 PM in the historic town of Yellow Springs, Ohio.

About the Performance Collage

“Loving is the Key: A Performance Collage about Bayard Rustin and Coretta Scott King” was created by Queen Meccasia Zabriskie, Associate Professor of Sociology and Performance Studies and Director of the Coretta Scott King Center, and Forest Bright, Associate Professor of Art and Chair of the Art Division, at Antioch College. The event, which is in collaboration with the World House Choir, will feature singing, dance, poetry, visual art, and a staged reading of an original play. 

Set in a rural midwestern community in the aftermath of the vandalism of a public mural, the play reenacts excerpts from the speech that Bayard Rustin delivered at Antioch College on April 6, 1965 and Coretta Scott King’s 1982 Antioch College commencement speech in order to glean lessons from their speeches that can facilitate collective healing and positive social transformation. The play also draws on research about Coretta Scott King and Bayard Rustin as well as aspects of Bright and Zabriskie’s lived experience in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Sarasota, Florida, and Atlanta, Georgia. The performance concludes with a video collage of individuals in the Yellow Springs and Antioch Communities discussing their understanding of loving practices necessary for social transformation. The idea of a loving practice comes from the work of Black feminist cultural critic and theorist bell hooks in her book “All about Love” and includes actions that resist oppression and domination. 

The idea for this collaboration developed out of a conversation between Forest Bright and Antioch College Archivist  Scott Sanders. Sanders was looking at Bayard Rustin’s speech in response to Rustin’s partner, Walter Nagle, inquiring about an audio recording of the speech. After realizing that it was the 60th anniversary of Rustin’s speech, Bright reached out to Kevin Mcgruder, who plays Rustin in the performance, Sanders. and Zabriskie to begin planning a commemorative reenactment of the speech. Loving is the Key is the result of subsequent conversations between Zabriskie and Bright, and it includes an excerpt from the interview that they were able to conduct with Walter Nagle through the help of McGruder. Also in the performance is Gini Meekin, a senior at Yellow Springs High School; Muhammad Nguer, a fifth grader at Mills Lawn Elementary School; Dio Smith, a Sophomore at Antioch College; and Corretta King, Associate Dean of Admissions at Antioch College.  

The community is invited to come to the Foundry theater at 6:30 pm to participate in the creation of  an interactive art piece prior to the start of the performance. There will also be a small reception with desserts from Sugar Witch Magical Treats in celebration of Coretta Scott King’s birthday after the performance. King, who died on January 30, 2006, would have turned 98 on April 27th if she were still alive. 

For more information about this project or the work of the Coretta Scott King Center please contact, please contact: 

Queen Meccasia Zabriskie
Antioch College Coretta Scott King Center Director
Email: qzabriskie@antiochcollege.edu
Phone: 937-767-1286 Ext. 0093