The University of New Hampshire’s 19th annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration will examine the nation’s growing prison system with a number of panel discussions and other events. Titled “One in 100: Dismantling a Prison Nation,” the celebration from Jan. 22 to Feb. 5 will feature a keynote address from civil rights activist and author Angela Davis.

This year’s topic addresses a United States prison system that has put more than one in every 100 adults behind bars. It comes on the heels of two death penalty cases in New Hampshire in 2008, one of which resulted in the state’s first death sentence in almost 50 years. Michael Addison was sentenced to death in December for shooting and killing Manchester police officer Michael Briggs in 2006.

Davis is an internationally known icon who spearheaded radical political activism in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Her keynote address, titled “Education or Incarceration: The Future of Democracy,” will take place on Thursday, Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. in UNH’s Johnson Theatre at the Paul Creative Arts Center in Durham.

Davis will discuss the proliferation of prisons in the United States and the disproportionate incarceration of minorities. She will express her concerns about the government’s tendency to devote more resources and attention to the prison system than to educational institutions. During a reception after the address, she will sign copies of her books, the most recent of which include “Abolition Democracy” and “Are Prisons Obsolete?” She is close to completing a book on “Prisons and American History.”

At 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 29, Laura Knoy of New Hampshire Public Radio’s “The Exchange” will hold a conversation with Davis in the Strafford Room in UNH’s Memorial Union Building. The keynote address that night will feature a musical performance produced by Sandi Clark featuring UNH professors Dennis Britton and Reginald A. Wilburn, as well as vocalists Olga Tynes, Khristie Dyson and Denise Richardson.

Other events honoring Martin Luther King Jr. include a photo art exhibit titled “A Prison Nation: Unlocking the Stories” on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 6 p.m. in the Strafford Room; a spiritual celebration titled “Breaking the Ties that Bind” on Sunday, Jan. 25 at 4 p.m. at the Durham Community Church; a Celebrity Series concert from all-female a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock on Monday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. in Johnson Theatre; and an educational panel titled “Are Prisons Obsolete? Exploring the growing prison nation in N.H.” on Thursday, Feb. 5 at 12:40 p.m. in DeMerritt Hall, Room 112.

For more information, visit www.unh.edu/diversity/mlk_celebration2009.html or call 603-862-0693.