On Campus

Syracuse University community members celebrate MLK Day, reflect on his legacy

Liam Sheehan | Asst. Photo Editor

(From left) Gerald Brown and Nina Rodgers walk outside of Hendricks Chapel to tie balloons and ribbons to a tree as a part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. remembrance ceremony.

By Satoshi Sugiyama

About 25 people gathered at Hendricks Chapel on Monday afternoon to celebrate late civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. with a remembrance ceremony held for the first time on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

“We feel like, as the university we want to have something on the actual day that we were supposed to commemorate,” said Catherine Kellman, chairwoman for the Martin Luther King, Jr. 2016 Celebration committee and assistant director for the Office of Residence Life at Syracuse University.

The attendees listened to Koy Adams, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, read a poem and watched a tribute video featuring King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. They subsequently went outside to wrap orange ribbons and balloons around trees promoting the themes of the committee: Remember, Celebrate and Act.

Kellman said the ribbons will be hanging on the SU Quad for the next three weeks.

The university will hold the 31st annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration on Sunday, Jan. 31 in the Carrier Dome. Marc Lamont Hill, a professor of African American Studies at Morehouse College, will give the keynote speech.



Malik Evans, student director of marketing of the Celebration committee and a junior dual major in advertising and marketing, said the biggest takeaway he wants attendees to bring back home is King’s message of equality highlighted in his “I Have A Dream” speech.

I hope that people will take something from this event — and also from the celebration event that we have on Jan. 31 — and really kind of embrace these ideas together and embrace the themes of what Dr. King envisioned.
Malik Evans

He added that the biggest challenge of putting together the ceremony was the timing, since students are just returning to campus around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Lynn Clervois, a senior biochemistry major, said she attended the event to start off the year right with a sense of togetherness and celebrate King paving a way for a lot of minority students.

“We are all here together and we all follow the same dream and we hope to reach success together,” Clervois said.

Student Association President Aysha Seedat and SA Vice President Jane Hong were among the attendees.

Hong said she was glad to come together on MLK Day to commemorate his memories and act in his name.

There’s always work to be done and I think for us to come together as the university community is really important.
Jane Hong

Angelo Coker, an attendee and programming director at CommunityU, said he was proud to be part of the celebration.

“Dr. King stood for unifying people of all race, creeds, religions, organizations, and today this is a wonderful remembrance of how the community and the campus — as students and faculty alike — come together to share that dream and let those know that there’s still hope for change on the community and on the campus,” Coker said.





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