Commemorating the Dreamer

January 18, 2005 Issue

Like Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. was “unafraid to emphasize the importance of character nurturing and adherence to principles grounded in integrity,” said Department of Africana Studies Chair Cecil Blake (above, right) during a discussion that the department held Jan. 14 to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “Martin said to all of us: ‘I have a dream that my four little 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.’ Note the reference to his children, a reference that clearly makes it incumbent on all of us entrusted with the responsibility of nurturing, to ensure that the content of character instilled in our young is such that they would stake their personal integrity on that dimension of human beings that cannot by itself grow without willed and strategic interventions.”

If King were alive today, said Associate Professor of Africana Studies Vernell Lillie (left), he would be the first to dispute the commonly held belief that he was America’s sole, towering civil rights leader of the 1950s and 1960s. Many other leaders—and followers—participated in the movement, she noted.

King “forced this country to live up to its own professed ideals,” said Dennis Brutus, professor emeritus of Africana studies. And King’s commitment to social justice was worldwide, Brutus noted: In addition to fighting discrimination against African Americans, King also protested the U.S. war in Vietnam and apartheid in South Africa.