WESTPORT — Shonda Rhimes, the award-winning television producer and Westport resident, will be guest of honor at the town’s 19^th annual Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration on Jan. 19 at the Westport Library.

Rhimes will be interviewed by Trey Ellis, writer, filmmaker and fellow Westporter, at the program celebrating King’s pioneering civil rights legacy at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 19, at the library, 20 Jesup Road. The event is co-sponsored by TEAM Westport, the Westport/Weston Clergy Association and the Westport Country Playhouse.

Registration to attend the King commemoration will be accepted online by the library starting at 10 a.m. Friday, Dec. 20. The Jan. 19 event also can be watched via livestream. There is no fee.

Rhimes, who was honored at the library’s 2022 “Booked for the Evening” program, is the founder and CEO of Shondaland production company. She has been the head writer and executive producer of television programs such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Private Practice,” “Scandal” and “Inventing Anna,” and producer of “How to Get Away with Murder,” “Bridgerton” and others.

She also appeared at the library last June to discuss her documentary, “Black Barbie,” recounting creation of the first Black doll to join the iconic line of Barbie dolls.

Inducted into the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 2017, Rhimes has received numerous honors, including a Golden Globe, Peabody Award and lifetime achievement awards from the Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild and Producers Guild, plus several AFI Awards for Television Program of the Year and NAACP Image Awards.

Her book, “Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person,” published in 2015, was a New York Times best-seller.

Rhimes’s “groundbreaking storytelling, advocacy for inclusivity, and creative vision embody the values Dr. King stood for and continue to inspire our community today,” William Harmer, the library’s executive director, said in a statement announcing the MLK program.

Harold Bailey Jr., the TEAM Westport chair, said in the joint statement that Rhimes “recently stated, ‘You have to see it to be it.’ More than any other storyteller on the planet, she has helped people see and aspire to embrace a world beyond the perennial shackles of bias, custom and class — a world that is the sweet spot of Martin Luther King’s vision.”

Ellis, author of “Platitudes,” is an American Book Award-winning novelist, two-time Emmy- and Peabody-winning filmmaker, NAACP Image award-winning playwright and essayist, and professor of professional practice at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

For questions about the Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration, call the Westport Library at 203-291-4800.