Luminaria march honors legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

For a time, the crowd at Kansas University’s second annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration mulled around, chatting among themselves.

Then, around 7 p.m., Santos Nunez hopped up on the pedestal of the Jayhawk statue outside of Strong Hall and hushed the crowd.

“We’re going to march slowly,” the Multicultural Resource Center director told the crowd, “to honor those who marched before us.”

Nunez stepped down, called KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway and state Rep. Barbara Ballard to the front of the line, and started the candle-lit march to honor King’s memory and the spirit of the civil rights movement he led.

The song-filled event, starting with the march from Strong Hall to the Kansas Student Union, capped off almost two weeks of celebrations in Lawrence.

The event was sponsored by the Multicultural Resource Center and KU’s Office of Multicultural Affairs.

Once inside the Union, the crowd – chiefly students and faculty members – filed into Woodruff Auditorium, waiting for the evening’s featured speaker, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.

Participants march toward Kansas University's Student Union during Walking

Willisha Slade, a KU senior, waited for other reasons, too. Slade is on the executive board of the Inspirational Gospel Voices, the university gospel choir that performed Monday night.

“I wanted to come out and show support,” Slade said as she sat with a friend.

After a few speeches and a performance by the choir, Cleaver took the stage to a standing ovation.

Cleaver’s speech pointed toward some of the problems King began to address late in his life – namely, poverty and war, something that the disaster in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina helped bring back into focus.

Cleaver said that because of massive spending on the war, the nation neglected the levees in New Orleans that left many poor black residents homeless or dead.

“We didn’t spend $14 billion (to fix the levees) because we’re spending $9 billion a month,” Cleaver said of funding for the Iraq war.

To fix these problems, Cleaver said, the young people of the country have to live King’s dream and carry on the goals that he worked to create.

“If you bail out on us,” he told the student-filled crowd, “It’s pretty much all over.”

After the event, Cleaver spoke to Hemenway, then walked out into the lobby where the crowd prepared for a post-march celebration.

For Cleaver, speaking at events like this gives him a chance to spark young people’s ambition and their hearts. Look at history, he said: Young people – not those in power or who have already built a legacy – are the ones who have changed the world.

“I’m energized when I’m around young people,” he said.

Cleaver then turned and headed toward the post-march party. All around him, young people came to shake hands and thank him.