Schools

An MLK Day Speaker Like You've Never Seen

Marc Elliott will speak about Tourette's syndrome and Tolerance at Marist next week.

 

"I'm Marc Elliott, I have Tourette's syndrome, I have no intestines, and now I've really got to go to the bathroom."

The last line of Eliott's YouTube video pretty much sums it up - a young man born with a rare disease that left him with only a few feet of small intestines, no large intestines, coupled with Tourette's syndrome. It could lead the viewer to believe that this phrase comes from a man with a difficult existence and a bleak outlook on life.

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As challenging as his life may be at times however, Elliott's outlook is far from bleak. He uses his differences to spread his message of acceptance and tolerance with lots of humor, combined with real-life experience and facts about his conditions to captivated audiences across the country with his next stop being in Brookhaven at 's Woodruff Auditorium.

"What you're about to experience is nothing you have ever experienced before," Elliott said to a laughing audience in his promotional video.  "I've been able to see how people treat and react to someone different who is so different from anyone else."

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The 26-year-old St. Louis native will speak on Jan. 18 at 7:30 p.m. at Marist in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. He will also be on hand to sign copies of his first book, What Makes You Tic: My Journey from Tourette’s to Tolerance.

The event is free and open to the public.


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