Former National Public Radio correspondent Michele Norris will not deliver Elon University's Martin Luther King Jr. Keynote Address Jan. 10 because of a scheduling conflict.
Norris received an invitation to President Barack Obama’s farewell address on the same day she was supposed to speak at Elon. The ceremony in Chicago’s McCormick Place is a week and a half before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated in Washington, D.C.
Her speech at Elon would have been about her experiences working on the Race Card Project. Norris began the Race Card Project in 2010 while she was an NPR correspondent. The project seeks to foster discussions about attitudes toward race in the United States by having people use six words to describe their thoughts and experiences about race.
Elon students were inspired by Norris’s work and decided to start a Race Card Project of their own. Many students have been sharing their own six-word summaries, which will be displayed in the Isabella Cannon Room in the Center for the Arts.
Despite Norris’s absence, the Elon Race Card Project will hold a gathering on Jan. 10 from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Norris’s speech will not be rescheduled.