A program to remember the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and his nonviolent approach to discrimination during the civil rights movement was held on Thursday at the A.D. Bruce Religion Center.
Speakers said King’s dream has been partially realized, but that there is much to do because inequities still exist today.
"Unfortunately when only 53 percent of Houston students are graduating from high school I don’t believe we have yet reached the mountain top," Stephanie Barton, president of the National Pan-Hellenic Council said. "When African-American men make up the majority of men in the prison system in America, I don’t think they are singing ‘Free at Last.’… We still have work to do."
Barton also said most people do not strive to make a difference in their communities.
Recalling King’s time in a Birmingham prison, Barton asked attendees to contemplate what King’s reaction might be to what they had each done for their communities.
UH Women’s Studies postdoctoral fellow Mamta Accapadi said King did not aim to do great things, rather he fought for what he believed in.
"He wasn’t striving for greatness," Accapadi said. "He was striving for justice. So why are we focused on striving for his greatness rather than following the path of justice?"
King was an important part of the civil rights movement, but he was not the only component, she said.
"Dr. King was certainly the melody, but he was not the entire song," Accapadi said.
She said it is up to people living today to achieve equality and justice for all.
UH Community Scholar in Residence the Rev. William Lawson said although there is a long way to travel to the "mountaintop," King would be happy with the changes in society.
"He might not think we have reached the mountain top, but he’d rejoice we have gone so far toward it," Lawson said.
He also said UH choosing a minority as its president is an example of how King’s message has come to life.
Lawson is a retired pastor of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church and has been applauded for his outreach and activism in the Third Ward, the Rice Thresher reported in 2001.
Many people see only part of who King was, Lawson said, and don’t understand what the sacrifices he made really meant.
"The fact that this man who was born into affluence would die representing garbage workers says a lot about him," Lawson said.
King wanted equality for people of all cultures and ethnicities, not only blacks, Lawson said.
The program, Remembering Martin Luther King Jr., was sponsored by several UH organizations including the African American Studies Program, the UH Council of Ethic Organizations, Women’s Studies and the Asian American Studies programs.
Executive Associate to the UH President James Anderson said the program was the first of its kind at UH. He said King handed down a powerful tool that everyone should learn to use.
"The power to learn to love, but refuse to hate," Anderson said. "(King was) an American hero, an international hallmark for justice and a champion for peace."
