As elementary school teachers handed students super-sized crayons to illustrate dreams of a racially harmonious society, some Northwestern professors also found ways to integrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s message into Monday’s lectures.
NU administrators canceled classes between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., but many professors teach at times that fall outside the scheduled holiday.
History Prof. Timothy Breen planned to lecture on the settlement of Massachusetts in his Early American History class, but altered his plans and instead chose to place greater emphasis on King’s legacy.
Breen said he hopes students remember civil rights leader’s relevance to other historically oppressed groups — including immigrants who fled Europe in order to escape various forms of persecution.
“We have to bear witness against the abuse of power whenever it comes along,” Breen said.
After sharing observations about King’s influence on American political culture, Breen allowed students to leave class early in order to attend Yolanda King’s address. King was the keynote speaker for Monday’s celebrations.
“It didn’t seem quite appropriate that I had just sort of made the deadline so I could give a proper lecture,” said Breen, whose class begins at 10 a.m. “It would be a terrible thing if this day were just denigrated into another mindless holiday, when students get out of class and watch NBA games.”
Religion lecturer Stuart Sarbacker opened his morning Introduction to Buddhism class with a Buddhist text that connected to King’s message.
“For never does hatred cease by hatred here below: hatred ceases by love; this is an eternal law,” said Sarbacker, reading from a translated chapter of the Dhammapada, a book of Buddhist verses.
While Sarbacker admitted that King and Buddha might have disagreed about religious specifics, he said they probably would “agree we’re agents of our own lives, and of our world.” Sarbacker said King also embraced elements of nonviolence that construct the root of Buddhist ethics.
History Prof. Henry Binford spent a few minutes at the beginning of his class, Development of the Modern American City, talking about how many of the issues that King highlighted were issues that have been problematic throughout history.
When King was killed in Memphis, Tenn., he was there to support city workers who were on strike, Binford said. That exemplified how King’s focus shifted from racial concerns to broader economic concerns shared by people in cities across the country.
African-American studies and history Prof. Sherwin Bryant did not plan lectures about King in particular, but he said the themes he discusses in his classes provide a background for understanding the struggle of oppression.
His Comparative Slavery class analyzes Old World origins of American racist thought, ranging from Elizabethan representations of Africans to the ideologies of white male travelers in the Early Modern period.
“In honoring Martin Luther King Jr., it is critically important to contextualize the struggle that he and others waged against injustices,” Bryant said.
Reach Maren Dougherty at [email protected].
