Across the nation, people celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.
According to religious studies professor Joseph Price, King’s message is closely aligned with the values of the College’s Quaker founders.
In a recent interview with the Whittier Daily News, Price explained that he often uses an article that King wrote in 1957, “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” in his classes to teach this message.
“That’s a piece that probably reflects some of the specific connections with the Quaker kind of embrace of nonviolence,” said Price. “[King] deals primarily with Gandhi as the inspiration for his understanding of the power of nonviolence, that it’s participatory and not passive, that it’s active and reflects a motive of love much more so than or retribution.”
Delaphine Hudson, director of residential life, annually organizes a celebration in honor of the slain civil rights leader’s birthday.
“(Martin Luther King Jr.) had a dream that one day we would all be together and free,” she told the Whittier Daily News. “And I decided that every year around his birthday, we would literally celebrate his dream.”
Related: Click here to read about alumna Dr. Lesley Green Huffaker’s ‘61 experience as an exchange student at Fiske University during the 1960s.
