Jaffrey and Rindge will be celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day with talks on voting rights by two speakers on Monday and Tuesday, in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.

The Voting Rights Act, which was adopted in 1965, outlawed discriminatory voting practices such as poll taxes and literacy tests, which primarily served as a roadblock for poor and Black voters in the South to access the voting booth. The new law had an immediate impact on the ability for Black people to participate in elections – the next year, there were a quarter-of-a-million new Black voters, and most Southern states saw more than half of Black residents registered to vote.

On Monday, voting rights and constitutional law expert Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a professor at Harvard Law School, will kick off Jaffrey and Rindge’s celebrations with a talk  will speak on voting rights in the 21st century.

The talk will be held Monday from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Cathedral of the Pines, followed by a question-and-answer session and a reception. The event is free, but reservations are advised and can be made at cathedralofthepines.org/register. In case of inclement weather, the keynote will be offered via Zoom and an email is required.

The event will open with a ringing of the bells at 2 p.m., with not only the bells at the Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge ringing, but also the United Church of Christ in Jaffrey. The bell-ringing is part of a national tradition honoring King’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” where he pulled from the words of the song “America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee)” to call for action and “Let freedom ring”.

Celebrations will continue on Tuesday at The Park Theatre in Jaffrey from 5 to 6 p.m. The community celebration will include musical performances by the Jaffrey Grade School Chorus and guest speaker Ali Sekou, who will share his journey from a small village in Niger to U.S. citizenship and the right to vote and on to election to the Concord City Council. Sekou made history as the council’s first new American, first African-American and first Muslim member.

Following Sekou’s talk, there will be a reception. Tickets are free at the door, and are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Jaffrey-Rindge celebrations are supported with contributions from the Rindge Woman’s Club, Savings Bank of Walpole, M&T Bank, C&S Wholesale Grocers and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s Putnam Foundation.

For questions and updates, contact jaffreyrindgemlk@gmail.com.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.