BY DAVID NICHOLAS
The nation today is observing the holiday for the late Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In Washington D.C., the nation's first African American president, Barak Obama, will be sworn in for a second term.
NPR's Michele Norris came to the campus of Saginaw Valley State University last Wednesday to keynote the Great Lakes Bay Regional MLK Celebration.
David Nicholas sat down with her to talk about the state of race relations today, tied to the message of Dr. King and the man taking the oath as President today.
The conversation began with how Norris wanted to and wants to bring the message of Dr. King to younger generations, now very distant from his time and work in the 1950s and 1960s.
Michele Norris took a sabbatical from NPR while her husband worked on the president's re-election campaign. She returns to the network now, not to once again host All Things Considered, rather to work on long-form profile pieces and to further develop The Race Card Project, an initiative she began while on leave from the air.