Music history makes its way to Marshall University with Lauren Onkey, vice president of education and public programs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, to speak 2 p.m. Friday in the Memorial Student Center room BE5.

The MU Graduate Humanities Program is hosting the event. Onkey’s speech is titled, “Dancing in the Street: Rock and Roll and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1964.”

Onkey is also hosting a Graduate Humanities Program Spring 2015 Major Scholar Seminar at Marshall entitled “Fight the Power.”

Onkey has been on staff at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum since 2008. She spent 14 years as an English professor teaching at Ball State University in Indiana. She has written essays about classic musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, and Van Morrison.

The Graduate Humanities Program at Marshall has other seminars schedule for the spring semester, such as “Appalachian Studies: Themes and Voices,” by Cat Plesca, “Charleston Water Crisis Oral History and Documentary,” by GHP Director, Luke Eric Lassiter and “Western Traditions and Contemporary Cultures,” by Anne McConnell.

Some seminars require special permission from Director Lassiter to attend. The Program Office is located at the Marshall University Graduate College South Charleston campus.

Matthew Eplion can be contacted at [email protected].