On the evening of Jan 21, students and faculty gathered in the JRC to commemorate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. The highlight of the evening was an original recording of his 1967 address "Remaining Awake During a Revolution" which was delivered 40 years ago during a week of symposia called "Liberal Arts in a World of Change."

As the audience listened to the address that King gave just five months before his death, a repeating slideshow displayed poignant images of the time highlighting racism and the civil rights movement. Some of the slides even showed King during his visit to the college as well as shots of Louis Armstrong and Ralph Ellison, both of whom had participated with King in that week's convocation.

In his speech, King speaks about the dangers of becoming too comfortable with racial and religious bigotry or of becoming too stagnant to act for change. "Human progress," he said, "never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability."

For some of the audience, the presentation's history lesson was still relevant. "It's pretty awesome that he was here and that so much still applies," said Grace Marengo Sanchez '10 after attending the presentation. "Everything still pertains to our world today."

Nkemdirim Offor '09, a member of Concerned Black Students who was present at the event also found King's speech relevant. "A comment I heard from a lot of people afterwards was how relevant the speech was with the Iraq war, and social justice issues," he said.

In addition to the speech, the evening also featured hundreds of luminaries covered with photos of King, some of which included lines from the speech. As the recording played, the candles flickered inside the room and on the cement pathways leading from Mac Field to the JRC.

Dean of Students Kathleen Skerrett and Rosenfield Center Program Director H. Wayne Moyer helped organize the event, which Moyer said gave students "the opportunity to reflect and to hear what [King] actually sounded like."

Offor agreed that hearing King's voice was beneficial. "[Previous symposia events] were from the professor perspective and alumni perspectives," he said. "It was nice to hear it in the raw."

Marengo Sanchez was impressed by the speech, but was taken aback that only about two-thirds of the chairs in JRC 101 were filled. She said, "I'm surprised that more people didn't come, but it was really nice with the candles and everything."