Massachusetts State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry ’96 will be the featured speaker at the 35th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Banquet that will take place Feb. 15 at 5:30 p.m. in the Corcoran Commons Heights Room.  

Highlighting the event will be the presentation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship, which honors a Boston College junior whose life and work reflects King’s philosophy.

State Senator Linda Forry
State Senator Linda Forry '97

This year’s scholarship candidates are Leah Bacon, George Boateng, Solina Jean-Louis, Akosua Opokua-Achampong and Melissa Wanyoike.

The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Forry is a Democrat representing the 1st Suffolk District. After graduating from the Carroll School of Management, Forry served as a legislative aide and acting chief of staff for Massachusetts Representative Charlotte Golar Richie and, in 1999, became director of the City of Boston Department of Neighborhood Development. She won election to the state House of Representative in 2005, and four years later was appointed chair of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business.

In 2013, Forry won the Democratic nomination in a special primary to succeed State Sen. Jack Hart, then went on to victory that fall in the final election.  

Forry is a board member for the Boys and Girls of Dorchester, Milton Library Foundation, Friends for Children, and College Bound Dorchester, and served on the advisory council for the Boston Foundation Haiti Relief and Reconstruction Fund. 

She has made numerous appearances at Boston College events, including a panel discussion last fall on “The Labor Movement: From Yesterday to Today” held in Robsham Theater and the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics “Lunch with a Leader” series.

–University Communications