Three years before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. walked into Sims Hall at Syracuse University.

King, widely regarded as one of the most prominent figures of the civil rights movement, spoke of inequalities in education in a speech entitled, “The Role of Education in the Civil Rights Education.” He urged political leaders and the community to put an end to economic disparities and improve education, particularly in urban schools like those in Syracuse.

“A lot of people don’t know about Dr. King and his significance in the community,” said Charles Pierce-El, a Syracuse native and civil rights activist who was in Syracuse during King’s speeches. “His voice paved the way for integration of schools here in the city of Syracuse, and he started a movement that in a lot of ways is still going on.”

Since 1986, the third Monday of January has marked MLK Day. The holiday honors the legacy of King, a social activist and Baptist minister who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. Across his speeches, he sought equality and human rights for victims of injustice through peaceful protest. The messages he left in Syracuse offer a reminder of both his footprint in history and the values he embodied.

During his life, King made two appearances in Syracuse. SU honors King with an annual celebration — slated this year for Sunday, Jan. 27 in the Carrier Dome — and in a library that bears his name at Sims Hall, where he spoke in 1965. But before that, his first speech in Syracuse came on July 13, 1961 in a speech entitled, “The American Dream.” Two years later, he gave his 1963 speech in Washington D.C., “I Have a Dream,” which contained some of the content from his 1961 Syracuse speech.

“We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools,” King said in Syracuse in 1961, according to SU Archives. “The problem that we confront in the world and in our own nation is that of unity. This can be summed up as the American dream, which essentially depicts that place where men of all nationalities can live together as brothers and is epitomized by these words: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’”

“This does not mean all white men or all Christians,” King went on. “But all men, Jews, Catholics and Negroes.”

King was the leader in pivotal events such as the Montgomery bus boycott and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which helped landmark legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act 0f 1965. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

In July 1965, he gave his “The Role of Education in the Civil Rights Movement” speech in Sims Hall. This came shortly after King led a black voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, where African-Americans made up nearly half the population, but only two percent were voters. King himself had noted that there were more blacks in jail in Selma than there were on the voting rolls. The Selma to Montgomery Marches were held in March 1965.

Then, King’s voice echoed in Sims Hall, with a focus on education and integrating schools.

“You have asked me to talk about education,” King began, “which is of primary concern to the Civil Rights Movement and a subject that I, as a father of four young children, have keen and troubled and personal feelings … After trying to analyze the problem that we face in education and the economic arena, I still have faith in the future.”

Charles Willie, the first African-American professor to teach at SU, met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during one of King’s visits to Syracuse. King delivered his first speech in Syracuse, “The American Dream,” in July 1961. Courtesy of University Archives

In David Garrow’s 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, “Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” King recalled a night during the Montgomery bus boycott. He couldn’t sleep, because a threatening caller had said to him: “N****r, we are tired of you and your mess now. And if you aren’t out of this town in three days, we’re going to blow your brains out, and blow up your house.”

King thought about his young daughter and his wife, and what his life would be like without fighting for justice. Then he had an epiphany. He heard an inner voice say, “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness.”

That became a moment King often looked back to, including a decade later when he visited Syracuse. Through two speeches, he left indelible marks in central New York. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, but he’d spoken at Syracuse and beyond, advancing civil rights through nonviolence.

His final words in Syracuse: “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

Published on January 21, 2019 at 8:16 pm

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