Indiana University East will welcome Barbara Cross, survivor of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., 1963, as this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. speaker. Cross will speak at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, January 21, in the Whitewater Hall Community Room.

The event is free and open to the public.

Cross is the daughter of the late Rev. John Cross,  the pastor of the church when the bombing occurred, killing four girls. Cross and her father were in the Spike Lee documentary 4 Little Girls, which was nominated for an Oscar. The film will debut on campus at noon on Tuesday, January 21, in the Graf Center and at 5:30 p.m. in the Community Room.

A graduate of Tuskegee University, Cross is now retired from Bell South Services following over 30 years in customer and network services. She is the featured speaker for the Dr. Martin Luther King Celebration Community Breakfast at the Townsend Community Center in Richmond.  The community breakfast is at 7 a.m. on Monday, January 20.