Martin Luther King III visits for Nov. 21 Ubben Lecture

Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Martin Luther King III

On Nov. 22, 1963, shots rang out as a presidential motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, killing President John F. Kennedy. Three months earlier, Martin Luther King Jr. had presented his famous "I have a dream" speech in Washington, D.C., a defining moment in the civil rights movement.

On Thursday, Nov. 21 -- the day before America pauses to mark the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination -- Dr. King's oldest son, Martin Luther King III, will come to DePauw University to present an Ubben Lecture.

"Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of Two Pivotal Events: My Father's 'Dream' and JFK in Dallas" will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Meharry Hall, located within historic East College. Like all Ubben Lectures, the event is free of admission charge.

A human rights advocate, community activist and a political leader, Martin Luther King III has been actively involved in policy initiatives to maintain the fair and equitable treatment of all citizens, at home and abroad. Utilizing the principles of nonviolence, King quietly exercised negotiation and persuasion to reach a compromise between Georgia legislators and leaders to change the state flag that was an offensive and divisive symbol for many Georgians.

His commitment to worldwide humanitarian concerns was exemplified in the late 1970s when he was asked to represent President Jimmy Carter in two official delegations to promote peace in foreign countries.

Later, in 1984, as a member of the board of directors of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, he ventured to five poverty and drought-stricken African nations on a fact-finding tour. The outcome of the tour was the creation of the Africa Initiative, a program developed to end starvation in Africa.

The former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King founded the nonprofit organization Realizing the Dream Inc., which eventually merged with The King Center in 2010. Through a mix of nonviolence conferences and youth development programming in the U.S. and around the world, Martin Luther King III has spread his father's message to a new generation.

King previously spoke at DePauw in February 2002. His father addressed an audience in Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church on the DePauw campus on Sept. 5, 1960.

In a national address in June 1963 -- a century after President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation -- Kennedy became the first president to call on all Americans to denounce racism as morally wrong.

"We are confronted primarily with a moral issue," he stated. "Are we to say to the world -- and much more importantly to each other -- that this is the land of the free, except for the Negroes?" Kennedy's proposals led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Dr. King's speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial took place on Aug. 28, 1963, during the March on Washington. In a 1999 poll, scholars ranked the speech the best American address of the 20th century.

The Civil Rights Act was stalled in Congress at the time of President Kennedy's assassination three months later, but the legislation was passed the following year and was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.

Some experts believe that day in November 1963 started a shift in American attitudes. In November 1963, a poll on the American public's trust in its government stood at more than 75 percent. That figure has steadily declined since, and now stands at 19 percent.

"Up until that point, there was this widespread belief in big business, big government, big thinking to lead us into a better future," Thomas Hine, cultural historian and author of "Populuxe," recently told the Oakland Press. "The assassination didn't completely undo this, but it showed that some things are far more fragile than we ever imagined them to be."

Martin Luther King III told Rolling Stone, "I have to live up to a certain obligation, that I have a certain role in society. I see myself as hopefully being able to enhance the dream that Martin Luther King Jr. had. Although we say dreams never come true, the dream that he talked about can be a realistic dream. It obviously is not gonna happen today, this week, next week, next month or even five years from now. It may not even happen in my lifetime. It may be a hundred years. But it is a dream that can happen."

A graduate of his father's alma mater, Morehouse College, Martin Luther King III spoke at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington two months ago.

"This is not the time for nostalgic commemoration," he told the crowd. "Nor is this the time for self-congratulatory celebration. The task is not done. The journey is not complete. We can and we must do more."

Established in 1986 through the generous support of 1958 DePauw graduates Timothy H. and Sharon Williams Ubben, the Ubben Lecture Series was designed to "bring the world to Greencastle."

Two Ubben Lectures have already been presented during the current academic year: Fox News Channel anchor and 1992 DePauw graduate Bret Baier visited Oct. 12, while former congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul delivered a Sept. 10 speech.

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