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Cornell University

Student & Campus Life

Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture 2026

Rest is Resistance: A Conversation with Tricia Hersey

Monday, February 9, 2026, Sage Chapel
Doors open at 6:00 p.m.

In person and via livestream. Free and open to the public.
Live captions will be available for the lecture.

Tricia Heresey

This year’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration will feature Tricia Hersey, a multidisciplinary artist, writer, theologian, and community organizer. Founder of The Nap Ministry, Hersey will speak on the liberatory, restorative, and disruptive power of rest as a fundamental human right and essential to advancing racial and social justice.

Tricia Hersey has over 25 years of experience as a multidisciplinary artist, writer, theologian and  community organizer. Tricia is the founder of The Nap Ministry, the originator of the ‘rest as  resistance’ and ‘rest as reparations’ frameworks, and creates sacred spaces where the liberatory power of rest can take hold in collaboration with communities all over the world. Tricia’s work is seeded within the soils of Black radical thought, somatics, womanism, and liberation theology, and is a guide for how to collectively unravel ourselves from the wreckage of capitalism and white supremacy. 

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Public Health from Eastern Illinois University and a Master of  Divinity from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, The Nap Ministry’s Rest Deck: 50 Practices to Resist Grind Culture, and We Will Rest!: The Art of Escape. You can learn more about her work at triciahersey.com.

The Commemorative Lecture will be in person and available to livestream through advanced registration.

Pre-registration is required for all in-person attendees. 
Register for in-person event here.
Please arrive by 6:45 p.m. or your registration may be released for standby tickets.
Register for FREE here.

Register for livestream here.
You will receive an email with the livestream link.
Recording will be available for 15 days after the event; for those who register for livestream.
Cornell Community: There's more ways to interact with Tricia! 

Check out the events below. You must register on CampusGroups here.
Feb 10: Rest Session with Tricia Hersey for Staff
Feb 10: Rest Session with Tricia Hersey for Students
Feb 11: Rest Session with Tricia Hersey for Students

Event Sponsors: Office of Spirituality and Meaning-Making; Black Student Empowerment; Greater Ithaca Activity Center (GIAC); Cornell Human Resources Department of Inclusion and Belonging; Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning; Health Promoting Campus; and Frederic C. Wood Lecture Fund.

2026 Commemoration Committee

  • Joel Harter, co-chair – Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Office of Spirituality and Meaning Making and Cornell United Religious Work
  • Sharifa A. Wip, co-chair – Associate Dean of Students and Director of Black Student Empowerment
  • Misha N. Ailsworth – Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
  • Aubrey Billups – Class of 2028
  • Ivy Breivogel – Assistant Director, Office of Spirituality and Meaning-Making
  • Perdita Das – Assistant Dean, Hans Bethe House
  • Sophia Dasser – Class of 2028
  • Sara Kaman Garcia – Class of 2029
  • Irene Gatimi – Class of 2026
  • Leslyn McBean-Clairborne – Director, Greater Ithaca Activities Center
  • Talia Richmond – Class of 2028
  • Sonia Rucker – Associate Vice-President for the Department of Inclusion and Belonging
  • Drew Aliyah Valentine – DEIB Student Support Specialist with Cornell AAP
  • Victor Younger – Director, Diversity and Inclusion, Nolan School of Hotel Administration

Event History 

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration at Cornell aspires to be a cross-campus and community partnership that makes accessible the life and legacy of Dr. King for contemporary times. The King commemoration brings together Cornellians, Ithaca College, and the Ithaca community. This annual cross-campus/community partnership to commemorate Dr. King strives to be a local example of collaboration across real and perceived stratification to promote moral values and social justice and to advance beloved community in Ithaca and beyond.
 
Speakers for the King Commemoration have included those who worked directly with or knew Dr. King, as well as scholars, activists, journalists, and religious leaders whose work is a continuation of his legacy. These speakers have highlighted the continuity between past and present, providing critical examination of King's legacy and contemporary issues. The issues with which Dr. King grappled — racism, poverty and income inequality, war and militarism, imperialism, and governmental abuses of power — remain with us today. 
 
To learn more about Dr. King's visit to Cornell in 1961, visit this Cornell Chronicle article. To learn more about his work and legacy, visit this library guide developed by the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library at Cornell.