Today, we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King visited Kalamazoo on Dec. 18, 1963 to deliver a speech at Western Michigan University. Continue reading to view past articles from the Gazette and to learn more about what Dr. King said that day: The Dec. 19, 1963 Gazette article on Dr. King's visit reports that the civil rights leader's trip to Kalamazoo was a "whirlwind" one lasting only five hours, because of blizzard-like conditions in Southwest Michigan. Arriving after a delayed flight, Dr. King had time for only a short press conference and then was whisked off to the WMU campus where he prepared for his speech.
"Before the main event of the visit, a public address at 8 p.m. in Read Field House, Dr. King took a few minutes to rest at the home of WMU President James W. Miller and 'organize his thoughts.'
A WMU official said because Dr. King speaks extemporaneously, he likes to seclude himself for about 30 minutes to compose his thoughts before giving an address.
Dr. King's talk was heard by about 2,000."
A 'profound influence'
By Paula Davis
The speech gave Western Michigan University freshman Melissa Robbins goose bumps. It wasn't the speech most often played this time of year - when the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is observed - but one King delivered on Western's campus 43 years ago.
Then it was before 2,000 people at Read Fieldhouse during a nasty blizzard. On Thursday, it was for about 80 at Western's Lee Honors College.
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Click here to read a transcription of Dr. King's 1963 speech
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King's topic that wintry evening of '63: social justice.
The part especially poignant to Robbins - who said she'd never heard a King speech before - was his explanation of nonviolent resistance as a powerful tool in the civil rights movement of that time.
"He was saying you can beat us and drag us out of our homes, but we'll still love you and even more than that, eventually we'll get you to love us. That gave me goose bumps," said the nursing major from Delton.
In her schooling before college, she said, "we didn't really listen to any of his speeches. I come from a small town. I actually never read (a speech) ... or heard a recording."
It's why she came Thursday.
The airing of this speech was part of the observance of the King holiday that's been going on this week at Western and around town.
The civil rights icon visited WMU on Dec. 18, 1963, as part of a symposium called the "Conscience of America," some four months after his now-famous "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C.
He hit some of the same notes, telling his Kalamazoo audience:
"All life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. ... For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be."
King said, "We're challenged, after working in the realm of ideas, to move out into the arena of social action and to work passionately and unrelentingly to make racial justice a reality."
Sharon Carlson, university archivist and part of a brief panel discussion following the airing of the speech Thursday, said King's address was one in an ongoing dialogue on campus about race relations.
"He was a distinguished theologian, author, renowned leader in the civil rights movement, really an obvious choice," she said. "... And after his 1963 visit, Dr. King would continue to have a profound influence on this campus."
Literally the hour after he was murdered in 1968, WMU students began making demands about curriculum, policies and programming, she said.
Then-president James W. Miller raised $28,000 toward a Martin Luther King Jr. fund. The Kellogg Foundation also contributed funding for what ultimately became the Martin Luther King Jr. Program, providing scholarships. The Black Americana Studies program, now Africana Studies, was eventually birthed.
"Western has made some strides in making things better," said Halbert Bates, also one of the panelists, calling WMU a front-runner in providing opportunities for minorities.
Bates, now head of advising for the Haworth College of Business, once ran the Martin Luther King Jr. program at Western.
"There are a lot of things that Dr. King spoke about in his speech in 1963 that we are still talking about today in terms of race relations, job opportunities and housing opportunities right here in Kalamazoo," he said, adding that progress takes time.
Robbins also said she thought of King's themes of 43 years ago as transcendent and still relevant - racial harmony, social justice, brotherly love.
"The ideas he used, everyone can relate to; they are just timeless," she said.
But graduate student Stephaney Carter was disappointed that in all the reminiscing Thursday, his speech wasn't put into the context of modern-day concerns about equal opportunity.
"I really wanted to see where Western is now in terms of, how far has it come since he came here," she said.
For instance, the scholarship programming earmarked for minorities that black students may have called for are now illegal after voters passed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, banning some forms of Affirmative Action.
Some see that legal action as regression, others a step toward King's dream coming to fruition.