EDMOND — Martin Luther King Jr. would approve of the University of Central Oklahoma’s emphasis on service on the day honoring the slain civil rights leader, a local professor said.

Next week, UCO will host King Week, a series of events scheduled to begin on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is a federal holiday.

On Monday, volunteers will work at the Oklahoma Regional Food Bank on the organization’s fruit and vegetable garden and packing lunches and other packages for a child-oriented program.

Volunteers also will assist Oklahoma City’s Infant Crisis Services preparing care packages for families in need.

Jere Roberson, a history professor and director of UCO’s Ethnic Studies minor, said under multiple presidents the university has sought to honor King, and he is pleased with how President W. Roger Webb has deepened that tradition.

“Dr. Webb has made it more involved, and the service learning, I think, is a part of that,” Roberson said. “If a person has done this service I think they can understand what it meant to be a part of the Civil Rights Movement and see things achieved.”

Roberson said he thinks King would approve of UCO’s emphasis on service on the federal holiday bearing his name.

MeShawn Conley, director of UCO’s Multicultural Student Services, said 43 years after King was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., Americans still feel the impact of his life.

Conley said today and in the future, it is and will be important to remember King’s legacy, the others who struggled with him during the Civil Rights Movement and how far the nation has come.

“We hope King Week will let the community join us in celebrating Dr. King and his legacy as we embrace his philosophy to serve others and to be advocates in our communities,” Conley said.

King’s life was centered around serving others.

At the age of 19, King was ordained at Ebenezar Baptist Church in Atlanta. From 1960 until his death in 1968, he was co-pastor with his father at the church.

Roberson said he has a great deal of respect for King because of the change he achieved and how he handled himself in the face of an uncertain future.

“Death always sat on his shoulder. It never did not sit on his shoulder,” Roberson said, adding that he respects how King acted on his words. “To love life the way he did and be prepared to lose it. I try to get my students to think about that.”



MLK DAY MEANING

In April 1968, four days after King was assassinated, U.S. Rep. John Conyers introduced the first legislation providing for a Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday. In November 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill establishing the third Monday of every January as the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.

In an article posted at the King Center’s Web site, Coretta Scott King, King’s widow who died in 2006, wrote about the meaning of the holiday, that it is a day “not only for celebration, remembrance, education and tribute, but above all a day of service.”

King often would quote Mark 9:35, she wrote, in which Jesus tells James and John “whosoever will be great among you shall be your servant; and whosever among you will be the first shall be the servant of all.”

“What are you doing for others?” King once said.

Coretta Scott King recalled how when her husband spoke about the end of his mortal life during one of his final sermons he lifted up the value of service as the hallmark of a full life.

“I’d like somebody to mention on that day Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others,” he once said. “I want you to say on that day, that I did try in my life ... to love and to serve humanity.”

Coretta Scott King urged Americans to commemorate the holiday by committing “to serve humanity with the vibrant spirit of unconditional love that was his greatest strength” and with open hearts America can achieve the “Beloved Community” of his dream.



marks@edmondsun.com | 341-2121, ext. 108

THE DETAILS

UCO KING WEEK ACTIVITIES

Monday: UCO’s Volunteer and Service Learning Center will host its annual MLK Day of Service, on which students are encouraged to spend their day off from classes in service to the community. This year, volunteers will assist Oklahoma City’s Infant Crisis Services to help prepare care packages for families in need as well as organize other items. Volunteers also will travel to the Oklahoma Regional Food Bank to help prepare and care for the food bank’s fruit and vegetable garden and pack lunches and other packages for the Food for Kids program. UCO students can sign up to volunteer for the MLK Day of Service by visiting the VSLC in the Nigh University Center, Room 212, or call 974-2621.

Wednesday at 2 p.m. in the Nigh University Center, Ballroom C, selected finalists will compete for the top prize in the final round the college portion of the Martin Luther King Enterprise Oratory Competition. Vincent Burr, a freshman biology major, Mike Maxey, a junior political science major, and Joe Thomas, a senior corporate communication major, will compete for cash prizes. The final round also will feature the winning speech from the first-place winner of the competition’s high school portion, Bryce LaFon, a student at Deer Creek High School.

Thursday at 1 p.m. in the Nigh University Center, Room 211, Multicultural Student Services will have a viewing of “Citizen King,” a documentary from PBS’s “American Experiences” series. The film traces the five years between King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 and his assassination in 1968, including his efforts to recast himself by embracing causes beyond the civil rights movement and by becoming a champion of the poor and an outspoken opponent of the war in Vietnam. The screening is free and open to the public, with light refreshments provided.

For more information about UCO’s King Week, call Multicultural Student Services at 974-3588.

The Logan County NAACP is sponsoring several events honoring King’s life and legacy:

Sunday at 3 p.m., a special community service will be sponsored at First Baptist Church, 401 S. Broad St. in Guthrie. Keynote speaker will be Eric Anthony Joseph, vice president for strategic initiatives at Mid-America Christian University in Oklahoma City.

Monday at 10 a.m., area residents are invited to attend a parade, which will begin in Guthrie at the Scottish Rite Temple and proceed west on Oklahoma Street to just west of Guthrie City Hall. A come-and-go reception will be at the Fairgrounds Building on South Division Street immediately following the parade.

For more information about ways you can serve on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, visit mlkday.gov. Another site with information on volunteer activities is All for Good at www.allforgood.org.