The Fight for Equality

By: Shannon McCleve in The USU Statesman

Issue date: 1/17/07 Section: Campus News

 

David E. Dixon, co-editor of Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement, commemorated the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Tuesday night at a candlelight vigil held by the Black Student Union of USU.

 

The program consisted of excerpts of King's speeches and thoughts on the civil rights movement. The first vigil was at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 4, 1968, where he was the pastor.

 

"Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice," were the words that echoed in the Sunburst Lounge as people filled the seats. This was the speech given by King at the March on Washington to about 250,000 people.

 

Moises Diaz, the new Multicultural Student Services director, said, "What can we do to further the dream of King? Let us make tomorrow a better tomorrow for future generations."

 

Dixon said the best thing about King was his "realistic understanding that we have to educate our children if we are to bring about change."

 

He said, "This is the most important legacy as far as I'm concerned."

 

There was a slideshow at the end of the vigil showing pictures of boycotts, rallies, beatings, the Ku Klux Klan and many other images from the civil rights movement.

 

An anonymous source who was a participant of the vigil said, "Those photos were very graphic. It was really a humbling experience to witness the brutality that is in this nation's past."

 

King worked with many peace makers, he said. He brought religious ideals to the civil rights movement, he said, but never excluded any religious conviction.

 

Diaz said it is beneficial for everyone to reflect on a generation of progress. He said people can still move forward in a positive way.

 

A quote by King said, "We recognize the movement of a whole nation to higher places."

King said he refused to believe that worldwide acceptance will never happen.

 

Dixon said the one setback from the civil rights movement is in the nation's educational system.

"It's going to take us a long time to fix that problem," he said.

 

The anonymous source said she had never felt so close to people she had never talked to.

 

"I would not trade this experience in for the world," she said.

 

The theme of the vigil was "Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful and to confuse the true with the false and false with the true," by Martin Luther King, Jr.