Martin Luther King Jr

DR. FRED McELROY speaks to a crowded room of multi-racial students about the importance of researching all aspects of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Santiago Flore

CHAMP ON

Students remember Martin Luther King Jr., a man with flaws, determination and a true heart

OSPONSORED BY THE

Black Culture Center's advisory board and AfroAmerican Affairs, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s, birthday celebration helped a crowd of African Americans and whites better understand the civil rights leader.

It also ushered people in from subzero temperatures to remember King in a series of films that ran at the Black Culture Center. Starting at 10 a.m., students filtered in and out to watch documentaries on the life of King. Dr. Fred McElroy, associate professor of Afro-American Studies, delivered an evening

OF THE TRUTH

lecture that brought not only a message of the civil rights leader, but also one of truth, love and the importance of education on this holiday. "I am a teacher," McElroy said, "and as a teacher, I urge all of us to honor Martin Luther King by visiting the library." McElroy said to honor King is to research him. By merely sanctifying King one day a year, he said, we are not truly honoring him as a man. "We must tell the truth about his life and legacy," McElroy said. "We must approach learning about Dr. King with a tough mind and

By Mike Nichols

a tender heart." King's temper, eating habits and his extramarital affairs were a fey of the examples McElroy used to paint the picture of King as a human being. "This was no black Jesus, this was a human being, and the greatness of the man is that despite his human foibles, he achieved what he achieved," McElroy said. He said these shortcomings mad, King's accomplishments all the greater. McElroy then applied the ideology of truth to how we celebrate this day. "A nation that celebrates the Fourth of July every year proclaiming liberty, and

: RESHMAN Serina de Jesus, like nany other students, may benefit tom Dean Hanks' new program on -acial diversity held at the Black Cul:ure Center.

Vlartin Luther King Day )roclaiming racial harmony — given the condition of the J.S. at this time — is living a ie," McElroy said.

He left the podium with me last plea to Africankmerican youth. "If you love yourself, you levelop yourself ... you can levelop your powers ... to ransform this world."

Afro-American Studies Dean Lawrence Hanks said, `We've made little progress oward real human underlanding." To combat this, ie announced a new program o help blur racial lines on :ampus. Once a week at the Black Culture Center, Hanks said, students would have the opportunity to get to know someone from another race. He said the meetings would be informal with no real agenda planned to give students the chance to communicate one-on-one.

After a song titled "For Always," performed by freshman Estelle Husband, others had a chance to voice what this day meant to them. "To truly honor Martin, we must go beyond the dream to reality," junior Phillip Boyd said. Boyd was a member of the Black Student Advisory Council.

Senior Tomico Washington agreed and criticized those who have only kept King in their hearts one day a year. "They don't listen to his teachings or what he wanted for the world," Washington said. Others criticized those who only looked at his birthday as a reason to get out of school or their job. "I don't feel people should not go to class even if it were to be recognized by IU," junior Maya Halcomb said. "If he were still here, he would want us to still go to class and better ourselves. If we still have the dream, we should still go to school."

Santiago Flores "A dream deferred makes the heart grow bitter," McElroy said, quoting the Book of Proverbs, "his dream has been deferred far too long. It is now time for us to plant the seeds for the tree of life." McElroy looked to youth, of all races, as the seeds for that tree.

On that cold night, people trudged through half a foot of snow to hear these words of wisdom and truth. Most left with a better understanding of the holiday, the man who caused it and perhaps, with a seed planted for truth and racial harmony.