KU walk honors MLK's legacy / LJWorld.com

Archive for Tuesday, January 23, 2007

March for civil rights continues

January 23, 2007

Kansas University students, faculty members and others in the community march from Strong Hall to the Kansas Union in remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Luminarias along the route lit the way for Monday night's walk, which was followed by singing and speakers inside the Kansas Union.

About 60 Kansas University students followed a candlelit path along Jayhawk Boulevard on Monday evening in a walk honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

"I asked the participants to think of someone in their lives that was not able to be with us tonight : and to think about how that person may have impacted their lives and how that person may have been affected by discrimination or racism," said Santos NÃ°Ã±ez, program director of KU's Multicultural Resource Center. "Tonight I marched for my parents who were immigrants to this country and had to deal with a lot of racism and discrimination."

Because the national observance of King's birthday falls during KU's winter break, the university planned the luminaria walk so students could have an opportunity to celebrate King's legacy.

Following the walk, more than 100 people gathered inside Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union for performances from the KU student group Inspirational Gospel Voices and an address from keynote speaker Walter Kimbrough, president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark.

Though many honor the civil rights leader, the essence of his message often gets lost, Kimbrough said.

Kimbrough said each year he looks for a new meaning in King's work. And for Monday's event, he recalled a 1961 King sermon, "Transformed Nonconformist."

Kimbrough urged the audience to resist conformity, fight the good fight and walk the dream that King laid out.

King "closed that sermon by saying, 'We must make a choice,'" Kimbrough said. "Will we continue to march the drumbeat of conformity and respectability, or will we, listening to the beat of a more distant drum, move to its echoing sounds?

"Will we march only to the music of time or will we, risking criticism and abuse, march to the soul-saving music of eternity?: Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

State Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, and Marlesa Roney, KU's vice provost for student success, also spoke at the event.

Tek Burka, a KU senior who moved to the U.S. from Ethiopia several years ago, said he felt compelled to come out and pay respects for the man who had a great influence on his life.

"I feel the need to cooperate with other young people and respect his presence," Burka said.

Alecia Williams, KU junior, said it's important to recall King and what he stood for.

"I take a lot of pride in being African-American," she said. "I know that Dr. King's legacy is important. I just wanted to come out and celebrate his life."