2022 Celebration

Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Celebration

In lieu of the annual birthday breakfast and program at the Grand River Center, the celebration was held LIVE in a virtual format.

MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 2022

7:30 a.m. Live Broadcast


Catalysts for Change.
Moving Toward Action.

EMCEE: Rev. Tim Bees

MEET THE SPEAKERS >>

2022 MLK Celebration Speaker Brian HallstoosBrian Hallstoos

Associate Professor of History, University of Dubuque

In addition to his role at the University of Dubuque, Brian Hallstoos is the current president of the Mid-America American Studies Association. His research focuses on African American cultural history, and he is currently writing a biography on Black Olympian Sol Butler. Hallstoos also serves as co-chair of the Nathaniel Morgan Memorial Committee, which began in early 2018 and is committed to construction of a monument of Morgan, who was lynched in Dubuque in 1840. Brian, his spouse Sharon, and their three children (Tatum, Elise, and Joplin) have lived in Dubuque since 2012.


2022 MLK Celebration Speaker Caprice JonesCaprice Jones

Founder/Executive Director, The Fountain of Youth Program

Born in Chicago, Caprice Jones moved to Dubuque in 2015 with his wife and children because he wanted a future filled with unlimited possibilities and an opportunity for his children’s children to live and experience the American Dream. His vision came to incorporate others, and in 2016 led to founding and becoming the executive director of Fountain of Youth, a non-profit organization with the mission of changing mindsets to eliminate generational poverty.


2022 MLK Celebration Speaker Steven "Louie" MeierSteven “Louie” Meier

Union Worker and Advocate

Steven “Louie” Meier is a proud member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI) and currently serves as vice chair of the Dubuque Democratic Socialists. An advocate for healthcare, unions and criminal justice reform, he is a father of two children who wants to see a world in which people are truly judged based on the content of character and nothing else. Meier was an organizing member of Iowa’s first statewide campaign workers union, the third nationally, and worked for the 2018 Cathy Glasson for Governor campaign. Meier has spent all but four years of his life living in Dubuque and is a 2010 graduate of Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) with an associate of arts degree in human services.