When MLK Visited SMU

Yesterday, of course, was the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service; hence, Emmitt Smith and family’s visit to Congo Street, where they joined Brent Brown and bcWORKSHOP. But SMU has actually deemed this MLK Week 2010, with a kick-off King Celebration scheduled for noon today at the Hughes-Trigg Commons followed by events that last through Friday. Which I mention, for the most part, to draw your attention to the university’s having made available King’s speech at McFarlin Auditorium on March 17, 1966.

It’s an estimable march down memory lane: Here’s a downloadable file (“for your iPod,” natch), and The Daily Campus‘s coverage of the event. Here too are some excerpts, among them:

I guess probably more than any other question, the one I get over and over again as I journey around our nation, is the question of whether we are making any real progress in race relations. It is a poignant and desperate question on the lips of thousands and millions of people all over this nation. And I guess the only answer I can give to that question is what I consider a realistic one. It avoids the extremes of a deadening pessimism and superficial optimism. I would say that we have come a long, long way in our struggle to make justice a reality for all men but we have a long, long way to go before the problem is solved. And it is this realistic position that I would like to use as a basis for our thinking together this afternoon. As we think of the future of integration and as we think of progress in race relations, we have come a long, long way but we still have a long, long way to go.

On a related note, our Dylan Hollingsworth was at the MLK Day Parade yesterday and took some extraordinary shots. See for yourself.