The Carrier Dome was full of excitement Sunday night – but a different kind of excitement.

An estimated 2,000 students, faculty, staff and members of the Syracuse community joined together not to cheer on the Syracuse men’s basketball team or sing along with Snoop Dogg; they were there to celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Syracuse University hosted the 21st annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, the largest collegiate celebration of King’s life and birthday, said Brittany McCombs, a senior in the College of Visual and Performing Arts who gave closing remarks at the ceremony.

The celebration featured performances by SU’s Black Celestial Choral Ensemble, Mass Choir, Black Reign step team and dramatic recounts of King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and Langston Hughes’ ‘A Dream Deferred’ poem by students in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Grant Williams, chair of the Martin Luther King Jr. 2006 Celebration Committee and captain of the Public Safety, set the tone for the evening when he said it is important to ‘reflect on the past to prepare for the future.’

Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a professor of law at Harvard University and the event’s keynote speaker, said he had trepidations speaking about King.

‘It’s a difficult world and we have to make sure we find ways to connect to the younger generations,’ he said.

Ogletree focused on how little the younger generations know about the life and struggles of King despite the abundance of information available.

People also ‘cheapen’ the struggles of King when they focus solely on the latter half of his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Ogletree said.

He also said King would be amazed that all the progress made while he was still alive has regressed so far since then.

‘If he came back today he would be ashamed of this country,’ Ogletree said.

Ogletree detailed the many accomplishments of King and also educated the audience on many historical events in American history relating to the Civil Rights movement, or lack thereof, that are rarely taught to students.

‘Martin Luther King Jr. opened doors,’ he said. ‘It is our responsibility to keep those doors open.’

Ogletree also challenged the audience to think about King in a different way than the usual light of a pacifist.

‘Let’s appreciate what he sacrificed,’ he said, referring to the violence, imprisonment and threats of death King experienced. ‘He was a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday preacher. If we remember King, let’s remember who he really was.’

If King was still alive, Ogletree said, he would be in the nation’s capital insisting the United States should not be in a war with Iraq, the people affected by Hurricane Katrina not be forgotten and the U.S. government should not spy on the American people.

‘Martin Luther King’s fight was not about politics, it was about a sense of morality,’ he said.

Paula Johnson, a professor with the College of Law who introduced Ogletree, outlined Ogletree’s accomplishments and credentials.

Olgetree is the founding and executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard and has written several books, the most recent ‘Brown at 50: The Unfinished Legacy’ honors the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education.

Ted Finlayson-Schuler, a graduate student in the disability studies program, said he and his family have been attending the annual Martin Luther King celebration for years.

‘We think it is really important for the kids to understand the history,’ he said.

This year’s celebration, Finlayson-Schuler said, was less formal than in years past, but had a greater sense of community.

‘It’s really important for generations to understand what our age went through in the ’60s,’ he said.

Published on January 22, 2006 at 12:00 pm