A celebration of the life and legacy of civil rights icon Dorothy Cotton will be held Aug. 11 from 2 to 4:30 p.m. in Bailey Hall on the Cornell campus. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required.

Speakers will include three civil rights leaders: Andrew Young, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and mayor of Atlanta; Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, winner of the Congressional Medal of Freedom; and the Rev. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign National Call for a Moral Revival.

Friends and colleagues from across the United States who worked with Cotton on human rights and community-building will also speak, the and Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers will perform.

Cotton was the only woman on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s executive staff. She advanced civil rights as a strategist, community organizer, teacher and leader. She served as director of student activities at Cornell from 1982 to 1991 and died in Ithaca June 10 at age 88.

Tickets are not available online but can be picked up at 119 Anabel Taylor Hall at Cornell and at the following locations: the Greater Ithaca Activities Center, Southside Community Center, Tompkins County Public Library and the Downtown Visitor Center on the Ithaca Commons. The event will be livestreamed at CornellCast.

The event is sponsored by Africana Studies, the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library with support from the Center for Transformative Action, the Dorothy Cotton Institute and community and campus partners.