The University of Pennsylvania will remember Martin Luther King Jr. with its 21st annual MLK Commemorative Symposium on Social Change, a series of nearly 30 community events, Jan. 18-Feb. 4.

All MLK Symposium events are free and open to the public. They include community-service projects, film screenings, lectures, musical performances and panel discussions.

The centerpiece is the annual Day of Service on Monday, Jan. 18. It begins with a breakfast for volunteers at 8:30 a.m. in Houston Hall’s Hall of Flags on the Penn campus. 

Volunteers will participate in a variety of community-service projects, including children’s banner painting, recording books on tape for a literacy project and beautification efforts in local schools and recreation centers.

The African-American Resource Center, which coordinates the Day of Service events, will also host a workshop for high school students outlining the college application process.

Organizers say that they always are in need of volunteers.

“Each year, we have more and more volunteers show up during the Day of Service,” said Robert Carter, associate director of the African-American Resource Center. “It’s an opportunity for Penn students, faculty and staff to spend time with our neighbors in West Philadelphia. What we accomplish together goes a long way.”  

The Day of Service will end with a candlelight vigil procession beginning at 7 p.m. from the W.E. B. DuBois College House at 39th and Walnut streets to College Green. 

Other key events during the 2016 Symposium include the 15th annual MLK Lecture in Social Justice, featuring Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, two of the three founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, on Jan. 21; the Interfaith Program and Awards Commemoration, Jan. 20; “Love, Race and Invisibility in a World of ‘Us’ and ‘Them,’” a talk by John L. Jackson Jr., dean of Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice, Richard Perry University Professor and Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, Jan. 28; and “Jazz for King,” an evening of live jazz music and poetry readings, Jan. 29, at the African-American Museum, 701 Arch St. 

Details on these and all the events are available on the African-American Resource Center website.