Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dear Skidmore Community,
This weekend, we honor and celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday is commemorated by a national holiday this Monday, Jan. 17.
In recognizing and honoring Dr. King, we hold up for emulation the best in ourselves and this nation. King brought out in all of us what Lincoln memorably termed “the better angels of our nature.” He pointed inexorably to what America, and indeed humanity, could be, and called us (and continues to call us) to bring to the surface that best self. As we face such a polarizing political landscape today, we do well, I think, to recall King’s conviction that we are fundamentally equal in the most significant of ways. “There must be a recognition,” King wrote, “of the sacredness of human personality. Every human being has etched in his personality the indelible stamp of the Creator.” This fundamental oneness, this radical equality, was at the core of King’s beliefs in justice and equity. He memorably states in the sublime Letter from Birmingham Jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. This is the inter-related structure of reality.”
In this fractured and contested world, it helps me to think about King’s insistence on our interrelatedness. I continue to believe that what unites us as human beings far outweighs what divides us. I continue to reject the current and fashionable insistence on us versus them, on division, conflict, and opposition. Often I think of Thomas Wolfe’s great quote from the 1920s, when he said, “I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found.” That sounds right to me about our present moment. And in King I find warrant for that hope. Robert Frost said you must be “lost enough to find yourself,” and King shows us the way to ourselves, and the way home. Ralph Ellison put all this together in 1952, just as King was preparing for his mission, when Ellison wrote, “the way home we seek is that condition of [humanity’s] being at home in the world, which is called love, and which we term democracy.” Home, love, democracy — these were the virtues for which Dr. King lived and died, and I find it particularly appropriate that we celebrate those virtues when we gather to celebrate his life of sacrifice and love.
On this important occasion for remembering and paying tribute to Dr. King’s life and work and for celebrating hope, justice, community, and activism, Skidmore has partnered with MLK-Saratoga to sponsor a number of local Dr. King Celebration Weekend events today through Monday, and the College will host its own virtual event on Monday as well.
The full program of local community events can be viewed on MLK-Saratoga’s website. All events are free and open to the public and, due to COVID-19, are now all online.
Of particular note, a panel from noon to 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15, organized in collaboration with Skidmore’s Black Studies Program, will examine “Communities in Action — A Community Forum on Critical Race Theory: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and the Implications for Our Community.” The discussion is part of a series of thoughtful conversations on this important topic.
Skidmore’s own MLK Day event will be offered from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 17. Michael Hill, professor of Africana studies and English and director of the Program in Africana Studies at Washington and Lee University, will present "MLK and A Legacy of Collaborative Brilliance," a discussion of how King handled the challenge of working with partners both within and outside the Black community and of how his civil rights era strategies remain relevant in today’s society. The talk will be followed by a question-and-answer discussion moderated by Winston Grady-Willis, professor and director of Skidmore’s Black Studies Program.
Skidmore community members can register to attend the Jan. 17 virtual event here. Saratoga Springs community members can watch the talk on the Skidmore College Alumni Facebook page.
I encourage everyone to check out these wonderful opportunities to gather safely this weekend to celebrate all that Dr. King stood for and strived for, and I ask us all to keep his values and teachings in mind as we continue to work toward a better future for Skidmore and all of our communities, every day.
Sincerely,
Marc Conner
President