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The University of Memphis will present the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Human Rights Award to Leah C. Wells in a ceremony Monday, April 5, at 2 p.m. in the University Center Theatre. The award recognizes individuals whose activities exemplify non-violent leadership in the pursuit of social justice and human rights.

The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship also will be awarded at the ceremony. The 2010 recipient is Antedra Alexis Finger, a junior biology major. She is the daughter of Marquazette and Alex Finger of Little Rock.

Leah C. Wells

Wells worked with the U of M’s Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change in 2005. She led the nonviolence training at the National Civil Rights Museum for participants in the 2007 march in Jena, La., in support of the Jena Six.  She has published extensively about poverty, human rights, ecology, and economics, and is a regular contributor to The Commercial Appeal’s online publication, “Going Green.”

Wells is now working with BioDimensions and the Memphis Bioworks Foundation on several projects, including publishing a local green-jobs assessment and contributing to a report on strategies for biobased products in the Mississippi Delta. She earned her bachelor of science degree in linguistics from Georgetown University in 1998 and her master’s degree in political science from the U of M in 2005.  She is pursuing her doctorate in political science at the University of Mississippi.

Antedra Alexis Finger