MU celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day

MU's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Committee sponsored the celebration.

By Daniel Everson

Published Jan. 27, 2009

Members of the MU and Columbia communities joined together Monday to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the past, present and future of the vision King expressed in his "I Have a Dream" speech.

The Chancellor's Diversity Initiative and the MU Martin Luther King Jr. Committee sponsored the day's events. The celebration began in the afternoon with a panel discussion at the Fred W. Smith Forum entitled "The Dream is Now!" The day concluded with a gala in Stotler Lounge, where Theater Department Chairman Clyde Ruffin reenacted King's speech.

"Every time when people think about Martin Luther King Day, it's always looking back," committee member Noor Azizan-Gardner said. "The idea is to remember Dr. King's legacy in light of having a new president and also giving hope for people to be able to tackle what we have to tackle for the future."

The four-person panel consisted of Spanish professor Michael Ugarte, political science professor KC Morrison, Lyn Williams from Change Today and Mid-Missouri Youth Vote Organizer Kelley Robinson.

Azizan-Gardner said the committee wanted to include local community members on the panel, including some who experienced the civil rights movement of the 1960s and some who are younger.

"It's a different time from Dr. King's time, in one sense," she said. "We've become even more multi-cultural. So the panel discussion is sort of like the old guard and the new guard."

Deputy Chancellor Michael Middleton moderated the discussion, during which each panelist spoke for about ten minutes. Middleton then added his own thoughts and opened the floor for questions from the audience.

Ugarte discussed King's lobbying former President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Ugarte asked the audience to consider, in today's context, who would fill King's role and who would fill Johnson's.

"Our first reaction might be that Martin Luther King should be represented by Barack Obama. And perhaps the president might be represented by Cheney or Bush," Ugarte said. "But no, LBJ is Barack Obama, and Martin Luther King is who? That answer is you and me."

Morrison, who grew up in Mississippi, shared his experience of standing up for civil rights outside of a segregated swimming pool, an effort "to stake our claims to, from our point of view, save our very lives."

Morrison said he and others made their stand as Morrison began his last year of high school, about the same time King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Robinson spoke about coming to realize the presence of hate in the world upon her arrival at college.

"I learned hate is something that permeates every level of society, every level of my existence," she said.

Robinson said the hate made her angry enough to take a semester off school. It was during this semester that she joined the Obama campaign.

"There was something about the people there," she said. "They renewed my faith and my hope, that I could expect better and I could demand better, and that together we were going to do that. We were going to start here, but it wasn't just going to be a campaign."

Ruffin began the gala with his performance of "I Have a Dream." The committee then presented its Martin Luther King Annual Award to Almeta Crayton, who became the first black city councilwoman in Columbia in 1999.

An open-mic session followed the award presentation. Several audience members, including Crayton, shared their thoughts on King's dream.

Senior Stacie Thompson also spoke.

"It just shows me that I've come a long way, but I've still got a long way to go," she said. "Being just a few weeks shy of 22, I've never heard the 'I Have a Dream' speech fully."