On Thursday, Jan. 23, Millikin University’s Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement sponsored a Martin Luther King Vigil in Lower RTUC. The vigil began with a prayer by Dana Bjorge from InterVarsity. Molly Berry then invited all in attendance to join in singing “We Shall Overcome.”
In her welcome, Berry encouraged all participants to make dreams and fulfill them. Dominique Gaines, Nick Brady, Brian Kocher, Arianna Lawson and Haley Hogenkamp performed a reading of “Who is Martin Luther King Jr.?” This was a poem that described what King did in his lifetime and why Americans should continue to celebrate him. After this performance, George Rushing, a Millikin student, read King’s “I Have a Dream.”
Dr. Anne Matthews spoke next. Her speech was about Ubuntu— a philosophy from the South African region of the world. Matthews explained what it was using quotes from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.
Tutu said, “A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” He also said Ubuntu is “the essence of being human.”
Mandela said, “A traveler through a country would stop at a village, and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food and attend him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu doesn’t mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is, are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?”
Matthews asked the audience who had Ubuntu on campus. Members of the audience said that Dr. Onuora and Dean Hall had it. She also gave examples of people all over the country that have it. She challenged us to have Ubuntu, even when others want to do us harm.
“The fact that you are all here is Ubuntu. You have it. You live it. We’re going to be okay,” Matthews said.
After this, students began speaking about their dreams. For example, Malcolm Branch dreams of traveling the world. Jahaan Randolph dreams of opening her own dance studio. Randolph once again encouraged all to dream now and prepare to fulfill them.
Berry invited all in attendance to write their dreams on the butcher paper hanging on the wall. If there was one thing that Randolph could hope that people would take away from this vigil, she said, “Don’t give up. Stay strong and don’t be afraid. We are all born with a purpose and we just have to make it happen.”