With a sold-out crowd at Hewitt Ballroom, SUNY Oswego celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King for the 27th year in a row on January 29, 2016. The main event of the program this year, however, was the appearance of guest speaker Bernice King, daughter of the late Civil Rights activist.
At the event, Bernice gave the audience a different perspective about her father; that there was more to him than what we’ve learned in history books as well as his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Dr. King was more than just an activist for civil rights. He was also an activist for the economy. As Bernice stated, our economy needs to be more person-driven and focused rather than profit-driven.
Bernice also pointed out the differences in people: Those who do nothing and stand on the sidelines, those who do something, and those who don’t know what’s going. I was reminded of this point after I first heard a Holocaust survivor who came to my high school years ago speak about it. Both Bernice and the survivor preached that “the good people did nothing.” Bernice's idea of the people on the sidelines relate to both the issue of racial inequity in the 1950s/60s and modern-day examples such as the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. There was a delay in the response to both of these situations both from the White Christians who wanted to end segregation and the government officials in Flint.
Another point Bernice brought up was on the issues of militarism, racism, and classicism as well as how these three issues are intertwined. She said that "regardless of culture, race, etc., we are one human family."
Bernice finished off her speech telling a story about two boys who wanted to play a prank on their teacher. The boys brought in a bird to their teacher. If the teacher said it was alive, the bird would be killed. If the teacher said it was dead, the bird would go free. However, the teacher said, "I don't know. The bird is in your hands." The moral of that story: The answer is in our hands. We are the ones to decide how our future should go. Our future is in our hands.
Bernice currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of The King Center founded by her mother, Coretta Scott King, in 1968. In 2014, Bernice launched an interactive Google Hangout series to talk to students while she is at The King Center.
