By Bernie DeGroat
News and Information Services
“American Culture or America the Multicultural?” will be the theme of this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances Jan. 17. Events being planned by the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Symposium Planning Committee include panel discussions on social justice, educational equity, the civil rights movement, and the multicultural university.
The committee is co-chaired by Karen E. Downing, associate librarian in the University Library; Catrina Y. Smith, an LS&A student; and Ralph G. Williams, the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and associate professor of English.
“The committee has been working very diligently to develop a symposium with a strong academic focus,” says Lester P. Monts, vice provost for academic and multicultural affairs. “Our goal has been to develop a program that will be a starting point for discussions, within University units, that will occur throughout the year. We would like to see faculty and staff begin a process that will ultimately result in the infusion of multiculturalism into University life.”
Symposium coordinator Michael P. Jones-Coleman, program associate in the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic and Multicultural Affairs, is excited about the work being done by the planning committee.
“We are developing an arresting promotional poster for the event, and the School of Music’s Black Arts Council will open the symposium performing works by African-American composers,” he says. “This year’s Martin Luther King symposium will be one of the most enlightening and memorable programs in our seven-year history.”
Downing notes that the day’s theme is intended to reflect the “challenges of becoming a multicultural environment.”
She says that the committee is trying hard to attract people from within and outside the University to take part in the panel discussions, which will be geared to campus issues.
“In the past, a lot of people sort of felt disconnected from some of the activities of the day, and how it affects them and how they can effect change,” Downing says. “What is different this year is the fact that we are really trying to tie these to higher education and academe in general.”
Williams says that it is important to perceive Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a “day for the whole community and not just for those who feel themselves defined in some way by their academic specializations.
“It’s one of those few times in the year,” he adds, “when the University community, and country more widely, is asked urgently to pay careful attention to the social and moral implications of our activity as scholars and citizens of the University community, and to diagnose ourselves in view of the clarity and commitment that was Martin Luther King’s.”
Smith, a senior majoring in Afro-American and African studies and music, is pleased to serve as the student co-chair on the symposium committee.
“I was very honored that I was given the chance to show that students have a say in what happens on this day,” she says. “To me, Martin Luther King is the perfect person to represent multiculturalism, unity and peace.”
For Downing, being a part of the Martin Luther King Day Jr. activities is especially satisfying.
“I come from an interracial family,” she says. “For someone who was raised in the manner that I was, it’s very gratifying and very important to see different groups coming together for a similar purpose, which is, I think, racial understanding, and trying to do something positive for our community. I think it’s very much in keeping with the life-long work of Dr. King.”
