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January 16, 2024
Introducing keynote speaker Professor Robin D.G. Kelley at Seattle University’s commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Jan. 16, President Peñalver offered this reflection on Dr. King’s legacy and the work that lies ahead.
Good afternoon. It is my privilege to welcome you to this commemoration of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He would have celebrated his 95th birthday yesterday.
Today, we reflect on Dr. King’s profound legacy, and the enduring impact he has had on our nation. His fearless commitment to human dignity and love continues to inspire us, guiding our efforts to create a more inclusive and equitable university, country, and world.
This year’s celebration is particularly meaningful, since 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
That landmark legislation aimed to end racial segregation and discrimination in places of public accommodation.
Dr. King's tireless advocacy played a pivotal role in shaping the Civil Rights Act, which succeeded in transforming the nature of public commerce in the United States.
Although racial discrimination remains a very real phenomenon (even in public places), the Civil Rights Act of 1964 fundamentally shifted our baseline expectations about equal access to service in stores, hotels, buses, theaters, and restaurants.
There is no question that our current national conversation on racial justice has taken a step backwards. We are in the midst of a moment of backlash. This can make it easy for us to fail to recognize the reality of the progress we have made since 1964.
But if you talk to most elders who were around in the 1950s, they can vividly describe how the Civil Rights Act – and the activism that preceded it – radically transformed the nature of our public life, however incompletely and however much remains to be done.
To fail to appreciate the reality of this progress is to dishonor the memory of their sacrifice, including that of Dr. King. It is also to call into question the purpose of continuing to struggle today to push us forward.
In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written a year before the Civil Rights Act became law, Dr. King prophetically foretold a day when “[America] will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be . . . a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses. . . . They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake.”
“One day,” he continued, “[America] will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”
Six decades after its passage, the principle of equal human dignity – of the search for “what is best in the American dream” – is just as relevant as it was when he wrote those words from an Alabama jail cell.
Dr. King’s unwavering commitment to our shared human dignity, rooted in his deep Christian faith, explains so much about the nature of his advocacy.
His faith helps to explain his steadfast courage in the face of overwhelming obstacles. As he put it in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, delivered the same year as the triumph of the Civil Rights Act, “faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future.” Even in times of darkness, he said, faith gives us the certainty that “[justice] temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”
His faith in the possibility of progress and in our shared human dignity explains his uncompromising commitment to nonviolence, which he saw as growing directly out of his belief in the divine spark in each of us, including those human beings with whom we disagree, including even those who stand in the way of the progress he hoped to bring about.
Faith in our shared human dignity explains his commitment to the power of dialogue and engagement, even as he insisted on the importance of the creative tension produced by strategic, nonviolent activism, a tension – a discomfort – he saw as necessary to turn monologue into true dialogue.
Today, around the world, and here at home, we confront a resurgence of blatant appeals to racial division. We see increasing willingness to justify to political violence as a legitimate means to achieve necessary ends.
Our continued commitment to Dr. King’s optimistic vision of human dignity, to nonviolence and multiracial democracy, “to what is best in the American dream,” has never been more critical.
At Seattle University, our mission calls us to empower leaders for a just and humane world. To be successful in that call, we need to create and sustain an academic community that reflects the full diversity of the world that our students will lead towards greater justice and humanity.
At this juncture in our nation’s journey, as universities across the country are forced by state laws to purge words like “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” from their websites, we remember that the principle of equal human dignity is intrinsic to our Jesuit mission, inspired by our faith, and therefore inseparable from who we are as an institution.
Seattle University is committed to being a catalyst for positive change through the education of our students to become leaders of wisdom and integrity. By fostering a diverse and inclusive learning environment, dedicated to academic excellence, we aim to equip our students with the skills and knowledge they will need to address the world’s great challenges.
As we commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. King, we reflect both on the progress we have made over the past six decades and on the work that lies ahead. We recommit ourselves to his ideals of equal human dignity and nonviolence and dialogue.
I am deeply grateful to each of you for being a part of this commemoration. Your presence here today signifies our shared commitment to those values that Dr. King held dear. I hope this event will inspire us to continue his journey towards a more just and humane future.