"Exploring Civil Rights through Art and Culture"

40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The year 1968 marked many changes for the United States. It signaled the end of the Kennedy-Johnson presidencies, the end of the civil rights movement, and the beginning of the end of the war in Vietnam. More than that, it meant a change in public attitudes and beliefs...."

http://www.42explore2.com/1968.htm

 

The Whole World Was Watching

The following are two interviews excerpted from "The Whole World Was Watching: An oral history of 1968"[1]


Naomi Craig

"When Martin Luther King died I felt as though the light had gone out of the world. It felt as though darkness was creeping in. Here was a man who stood for beauty. He stood for everybody...."

http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968/narrators/N.CRAIG.html

 

Kathryn Troyer Spoehr

"Martin Luther King was courageous and very effective, but he frightened a lot of people. I know my parents were afraid of what he represented. They thought that he was going to lead all the blacks in this country on some sort of violent revolution. No matter what his rhetoric was, they didn't trust him. What he did was incredible...."

http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968/narrators/K.SPOEHR.html

[1] The Whole World Was Watching: an oral history of 1968 is a joint project between South Kingstown High School and Brown University's Scholarly Technology Group. The project was sponsored by the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities and NetTech: the Northeast Regional Technology in Education Consortium. The resource contains transcripts, audio recordings, and edited stories of a series of interviews conducted in the spring of 1998. Members of the Sophomore Class at SKHS interviewed Rhode Islanders about their recollections of the year 1968. Their stories, which include references to the Vietnam War, the struggle for Civil Rights, the Assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy as well as many more personal memories are a living history of one of the most tumultuous years in United States history.

 

Dr. Dyson

Dr. Dyson raps about how hip-hop influences culture among other things including the acknowledgement of the 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s almost hard to believe that 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. To honor him, and to reflect on how our world has changed since then, Michael Eric Dyson has written a new book, April 4, 1968, due out on that day next year. Check out Dr. Dyson's YouTube clip.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Celebration: Add an Event

To add an event for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Celebration, please submit the following information to: Audrey Bentley at bentley@msu.edu

  • Title of the event and very brief description
  • Date, time and location of the event
  • Sponsoring college, department, unit and/or organization
  • Audience: faculty, staff, students, community
  • Is the location accessible to people with disabilities?
  • Contact name, phone number, e-mail address or web address
  • Is there a fee to attend?

Building Community through Service and Collective Responsibility

A time for dialogue, reflection, tribute and celebration

Dr. King

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Celebration at Michigan State University affords us all an opportunity to reflect upon the past while taking advantage of the opportunity to act upon the promise of the future.

"One of the great liabilities is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood. We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gap between our scientific progress and our moral progress."

What is Servant-Leadership?

According to the Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership, servant-leadership is a practical philosophy which supports people who choose to serve first, and then lead as a way of expanding service to individuals and institutions. It encourages collaboration, trust, foresight, listening, and the ethical use of power and empowerment. Servant-leaders may or may not hold formal leadership positions and Dr. Robert K. Greenleaf believed there is a sharp difference between people who make the conscious choice to lead first and those who make the conscious choice to serve first. "The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types," Dr. Greenleaf wrote in 1970 in a book he published entitled, Servant As Leader. "Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served."