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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — A South African musician will headline a concert held at the University of Alabama as one of the many events to celebrate the life and work of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The 27th annual Tuscaloosa celebration will feature jazz and R&B singer-songwriter Jonathan Butler on Sunday evening, the Tuscaloosa News reports (http://bit.ly/1TY1Iw8) reported. Butler will perform at the 2016 Realizing the Dream Concert at the Moody Concert Hall on the University of Alabama campus.
On Monday, Rev. Tyshawn Gardner will speak on Unity Day. A march will take place and the annual mass rally is expected to be held with the Rev. Schmitt Moore as the speaker.
Former U.S. attorney G. Douglas Jones delivered the annual Legacy Banquet lecture Friday evening. He was a 1976 graduate of UA and 1979 graduate of Cumberland School of Law at Samford University.
Bill Baxley received the Mountaintop Award at the banquet. Baxley, a former state attorney general, prosecuted KKK member Robert Chambliss for the church bombing, and appointed the state's first African-American assistant attorney general, Myron Thompson, who later became a federal judge.
Jones led a team that successfully prosecuted the last two former KKK members involved in the bombing murder of four young girls in 1963, at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
Butler grew up in apartheid-ruled Cape Town, South Africa, and began his singing career at the age of 7. He was writing and composing by his teen year and ultimately won several Sarie Awards, which is South Africa's version of the Grammys.
Butler found international success with his Grammy-nominated single "Lies." He's been included on a jazz-themed tribute to reggae legend Bob Marley, and in 2006 was a vocalist on "Gospel Goes Classical," which hit No. 2 on Billboard's Gospel chart, and No. 3 on the Classical Crossover. The latter disc was produced by University of Alabama at Birmingham music professor Henry Panion.
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