THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 13, 1995 TAG: 9501130515
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
In the time of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., there was no shortage of evils to fight: social injustice, economic inequality and racial hatred.
But many who commemorated the slain civil rights leader Thursday said a new enemy has threatened the victories he died to achieve: complacency.
About 200 students, faculty and administrators at Old Dominion University joined city leaders for the school's 11th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Observance.
The celebration honors Hampton Roads citizens who have taken up King's mission through their sacrifice and dedication to civil rights. As speakers praised the legal and social victories King never knew in his lifetime, they called on all races to renew their commitment to equality.
``I challenge you to join me in cooperation for peace, equality and justice,'' said Chesapeake Mayor William E. Ward. ``We must fight for tolerance in a year where there is much intolerance around us.''
Ward, the first African-American mayor of Chesapeake, and a longtime civil rights activist, was this year's recipient of ODU's Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award.
``Many blacks are suffering from the myth of progress,'' Ward, a Norfolk State University history professor, said later. ``We have become complacent, when in reality there is still the need to organize, the need to be vigilant and the need to demand equality.''
The consequences of abandoning that vigilance could be a setback for African Americans, Ward said.
``If we do this,'' Ward said, ``future generations will have to go through the whole struggle again. And, in some ways, maybe we already are.''
Under a gray sky, students who never knew legal segregation walked solemnly with others who were no newcomers to marching for civil rights.
``I remember hundreds and hundreds of people walking for miles - silent,'' said Nancy A. Olthoff.
Olthoff, who helped plan the day's events, marched with King and others while she was a student in Chicago.
``The silence gave me absolute chills,'' Olthoff recalled. ``There was not one word spoken. You were standing there with all these people, but the unity was in the silence. It was almost a time of reflecting, about what you were doing there and what it means.''
Some said the need to reflect is greater now than ever.
Navy chaplain Lt. Cmdr. Wilbur Douglass III quoted from King's famous ``I Have a Dream'' speech, delivered during the 1963 March on Washington.
``When King got up to speak, he said, `America has given the Negro a bad check,' '' Douglass said. ``He said, `We are here to redeem that bad check, and we will not believe that there is no money in the bank of justice in America.' ''
Douglass said African Americans, despite important accomplishments as individuals, have yet to make that check good as a community.
People entered the ODU fieldhouse to the voice of King explaining why he chose to stay in a Birmingham, Ala., jail rather than pay $178 for bail.
While participants Thursday stressed the need never to forget King's sacrifice for civil rights, some worried that the banners and leaflets on display at Old Dominion could have the opposite effect: drawing attention to the symbols of a past struggle without confronting the rage and inequity that continues to divide the nation.
``We've got to sing this song 365 days a year, not just one,'' said Bill L. Thomas, a conservative radio commentator who walked among a crowd singing the civil rights anthem King made famous, ``We Shall Overcome.''
``There are people who died for singing this song,'' Thomas said as he watched students read the lyrics from sheets of paper. ``There was a time, you couldn't always just sing this song.''
Students who came to honor King said their struggle was to understand how to apply his message in a time when subtler forms of intolerance have replaced legal discrimination, and when young blacks seem removed from the notion of radical political action.
``Today, people have fallen into the rhetoric of struggle,'' said ODU senior Carlos L. Miles, who called himself a pan-African nationalist.
``They speak the language of brotherhood, but they are not using the concepts. We love to hear that we love each other, we love to say it. But you have to do more than that.''
A senior in international studies and political science, Miles questioned whether anything could bring about the kind of change King said he swore would come, even if it wasn't in his lifetime.
``We've been debating this conflict for 300 years,'' Miles said.
He paused, hesitant to express cynicism as he honored a man who preached hope.
``But I don't think we really know what it is that's going to get us together.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
BETH BERGMAN/Staff
Ersky Freeman, left, plays Malcolm X to Jim Lucas' Martin Luther
King Jr. in ``The Meeting,'' a play about a fictitious meeting of
the two leaders, presented by Pinpoint Theatre of Washington. It was
the keynote performance of the celebration Thursday.
Participants in the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Observance march
at the ODU campus to begin the event.
by CNB