Speaker chosen for Wayne Community College MLK celebration
By From staff reports
Published in News on January 9, 2012 1:46 PM
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Irving Joyner
A LaGrange native and civil rights veteran will be the featured speaker at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at Wayne Community College, sponsored by the school's Cultural Diversity/Global Education Task Force.
Irving Joyner, a professor of law at North Carolina Central University, will speak at 1 p.m. Thursday in Moffatt Auditorium. His topic will be "Once Again: Placing King's Dream Speech in Context."
Joyner is the author of three editions of Criminal Procedure in North Carolina, published by the Lexis Law Publishing Co. He teaches courses on criminal law, criminal procedure, civil rights, race and the law at NCCU School of Law in Durham, where he has been a professor since 1982.
He serves on several state study commissions and agencies and in leadership roles for a variety of community organizations. This service included a five-year term as the vice chairman of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission. He is also a regular legal commentator for local, state and national media, primarily in the areas of law, politics, civil rights and racial justice.
Joyner began his civil rights work in high school in 1962 by joining picket lines and participating in various demonstrations to support the efforts of civil rights groups to desegregate public and private facilities in the South and in New York City. While attending Long Island University, he helped form the Black Student Union on campus. Joyner later joined the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and became a community activist who identified and attacked instances of racial discrimination and police misconduct. Among his many other accomplishments, he was involved in the organization of the National Black Political Convention in February 1972.
He continues to attend Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church.