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SCSU celebrates King’s life
 Media Credit: KRT Graphic
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Almost four decades ago, on Aug. 28, 1963, standing on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King ,Jr., while giving a keynote speech during a march for jobs and freedom delivered one of his most important and groundbreaking speeches.
He dreamt “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
Five years after his now famous “I have a dream” speech, at 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, King was fatally shot in Memphis, Tenn., allegedly by a lone gunman. But his dream lives on.
On Wednesday, Mixed Blood Theater, a local multi-racial theater company promoting cultural pluralism and individual equality, will re-enact “Dr. Kings Dream” beginning at 7 p.m. The event is in recognition of King’s birthday observed across the country today.
The University Program Board Literary Arts Committee and the Multicultural Student Services will also be observing the day with a “Moment of Peace,” a spoken word performance by 7AM Productions on Tuesday.
Both events will take place in the Atwood Theater.
Bianca Rhodes, literary arts coordinator with UPB, said the event aims to “educate people in a different way, not one filled with speeches, but one that is interactive in not observing his death, but celebrating the life that he lived.”
Born on Jan. 15, 1929, this year would have seen King turning 73. Killed at age 39, King dreamt “that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
King did not live to realize some of his dreams, but today, Rhodes is thankful for the struggles of her forefathers.
“Things have really changed since the 50s and 60s,” she said. “If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be at St Cloud State University to begin with, nor would I be able to drink from a lot of fountains.
“There are a lot of things that we are still dealing with but if Dr. King was with us, he would be fighting for things he fought for then only in a contemporary type of way. Dr. King would be fighting for more ethnic study classes to the point that it was required. To try to get people to understand other cultures. (He would) be fighting white privilege. Fighting for the end of hate organizations.”
King advised, “let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It’s a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”
“I think the violence that has been increasing by young people is a reaction,” said Michael Tripp, associate professor in the Human Relations department, “an adjustment to the situation, the social climate that has existed since the abandonment of the rights that were gained during the civil rights movement.
“People value the more palatable direction or solution as opposed to a reaction in kind. Today, there is a sense of pervasive estrangement, people feeling hopeless. They are being alienated and when people feel alienated, they respond in different ways that would be considered illegal.”
Tripp said that was what happened when young people perceive they are not being valued in our society.
“So you have young people of color that engage in activities to seek retribution,” he said.
With the aid of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, Dr. King sought retribution in his “I Have a Dream” speech.
He said the authors of both documents signed a promissory note, “to which every American was to fall heir, it is obvious today that America has defaulted on that promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.
“We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
“There is always going to be some conflict and some contentions about what the US should be in terms of working up to its various values such as those described in the declaration of independence and its constitution.”
Tripp said retribution is still being sought as is manifested “when people engage in activities such as drug trafficking, substance abuse and young people fighting over turf and trying to get respect.”
Tripp called such actions limited and misguided.
King implored young people to be “recommitted to self-improvement to improve one’s sense concept for respect. A lot of the activities young people engage are detrimental and self destructive to the end of bringing about equality and justice, what it does, is it supports a resurgence of inequality.
“Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood,
“There has been an attack on young men of color in our society, it’s a new form of segregation and control by their participation in violence. And so they have to make an effort to improve their own opportunities.”
Tripp said young people have to take responsibility for what efforts that are made to achieve those ideals of freedom and justice and equality.
“(They have to) understand how their participation in gang activities and violence is undermining the efforts and attempts to do that,” he said.
King urged that “we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
Rhodes said that so much had happened over the past decades that people don’t believe in non-violent peaceful solutions anymore.
Employing King’s philosophy of non-violence to the U.S.-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan, Tripp said the strategy violates the constitution.
“Trying to address terrorism by increasing on police powers is an assault on the civil rights of everybody,” Tripp said. “There is a saying by Benjamin Franklin, that any people that are willing to sacrifice their freedom for security do not deserve either.”
King dreamt “that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall together see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South.”
King’s remains lie at the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, a short walk from his birthplace.
MLK, Jr. Day Events
TUESDAY
Spoken word and poetry program honoring
Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Atwood
Quarry at 6 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
“Dr. King’s Dream”, a play starring Marvin
Grays, at the Atwood Theater at 7 p.m.
Michael Davies-Venn can be reached at: [email protected]
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