Volume CXXXIII, Number 13 January 25, 2002 f

In session at last, Bowdoin celebrates Martin Luther King's 73 birthday
JAMES FISHER
ORIENT STAFF

Due to the whims of the calendar, one often finds Martin Luther King Day at the end of Bowdoin's winter break. This year, though, the first day of classes ended with students filling Pickard Theater to listen to speeches and hear music commemorating what would have been the civil rights leader's 73rd birthday.

Martin Luther King Day keynote speaker Robert Johnson '71 spoke in Pickard Theater on Monday. (Henry Coppola, Bowdoin Orient)

The keynote speaker for Monday's program was Robert Johnson '71, the head of the Africana Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Johnson, whose recent scholarship has addressed the issue of government reparations for slavery, as well as repatriation in Africa, spoke on the parallels between present-day civil rights struggles and those of King's time. Johnson addressed the Enron debacle, the war in Afghanistan, and debt relief for developing nations, and argued that King would disapprove of how the U.S. has addressed these problems. Johnson spoke at one point of "the callous attitude of the Bush administration towards the world." He also touched on last summer's United Nations Conference on Racism in South Africa.

Johnson also drew connections between the life of King and that of John Brown Russworm, Bowdoin's first black graduate, in the early 19th century. He reminded the audience that King himself had visited Brunswick and Bowdoin in 1964, months before his reception of the Nobel Peace Prize. A short video produced by the College included alumni anecdotes of King's visit, in which he spoke on campus and held a discussion session with students in Maine Lounge. "We were a college of white men with little concern for the world around us," Steve Munger '65 said in the video, "but gradually that changed as the next four years unfolded."

The program also included segments from the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize, a solo piano performance by Associate Professor of Music Robert Greenlee, an original poem spoken by Ramona Pina '05, and performances by the Chamber Choir.

Wil Smith '00, Coordinator of Multicultural Student Programs, emceed Monday's event and said he was glad to see more attendance than usual. Smith pointed out that since classes were alredy in session on the day of the holiday, the event was placed in a larger venue than in past years. "Bowdoin often gets a bad rap for being apathetic about issues of race and civil rights," Smith said. "We might feel, at times, removed." But, Smith said, the turnout and response to Monday's event suggested otherwise.

Next week, the African-American Society will bring to campus another famous civil rights figure. James Meredith, the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962, will speak at Common Hour on February 1. Meredith participated in civil rights marches throughout the 1960s, but by the 1980s had moved toward a more conservative political stance and worked for Republican North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms from 1989 to 1991.

Kijan Bloomfield, president of the African-American Society, said that a member from Mississippi knew Meredith, who expressed an interest in speaking at Bowdoin. Other events in February, National Black History Month, include the semiformal Ebony Ball on February 16 and the Black Arts Festival on February 21.