NIU alumnus Michael Honey will speak at 7 p.m. tonight at the Holmes Student Center’s Illinois Room about Martin Luther King’s ideas for peace and how they apply today.

The title of Honey’s presentation is “Martin Luther King and Today’s Struggle for Peace and Economic Justice: A Historical Perspective.”

Associate history professor Rosemary Feurer said Honey won the history department’s Alumnus of the Year award last year, and the department always brings the winner to campus to speak.

Feurer said Honey is an award-winning scholar of labor and civil rights history.

Honey has written two books about labor and civil rights in the South. They are “Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers” and “Black Workers Remember: An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism and the Freedom Struggle.”

Honey is working on a book about the Memphis sanitation strike of 1968. King was killed while supporting the strike.

Honey also will discuss King’s beliefs in the context of the 1968 strike and also what he thinksKing would say about creating peace and economic justice in today’s world. Honey probably will speak about his new book as well.

“If you think you know everything you need to know about Martin Luther King, you’ll be surprised,” Feurer said. She said Honey’s presentation should be thought-provoking.

Honey’s presentation is sponsored by NIU’s history department and graduate school.