Contact: Julien Hradecky
Fee:
$30.00
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20
Jan
2023
Santa Barbara
1st Presbyterian Church
21 E Constance
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
United States of America

The Santa Barbara Rotary Club is excited to welcome Robert Benham to speak to our club in honor of Martin Luther King Day.

Robert Benham received his undergraduate and law degrees from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN during the period when John Lewis and Diane Nash, schooled by Jim Lawson, were at the forefront of peaceful protest as a means of achieving desegregation.  Benham later practiced law in Memphis for over thirty years and was an eyewitness to the ambulance carrying Martin Luther King from the Lorraine Motel to St.Joseph hospital.  He served as Judge in Division 1 of the Probate Court of Shelby County, TN for fifteen years before retiring to Santa Barbara.

Judge Benham will give us a presentation of the 1968 events that brought Martin Luther King to Memphis resulting in his assassination. The program will be told to us by a fifty (50)  year resident of that city who was an eye witness to events that led to this tragedy, the ramifications of which are still influencing moral values and politics in our country.