University honors King’s legacy, continues to strive for diversity

For the past 26 years, Oregon State University has been celebrating the legacy of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and according to OSU Director of Community and Diversity Terryl Ross, it’s one of the largest and longest-running such celebrations at Oregon’s universities.

It’s also clearly a favored community event, considering that several hundred people woke up before dawn Monday to attend the 26th annual MLK Peace Breakfast. After settling in with their quiche, bacon and melon, the audience listened to speakers address the meaning of Mohandas Gandhi’s words: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

“This is a day when the community rids itself of the barriers that divide it, and comes together as one,” said Miao Zhao, a student leader who helped to organize the breakfast.

OSU President Ed Ray said that as an economist, he long has been painfully aware of the nation’s great economic disparities. OSU can help change the factors that create such disparity to encourage cultural diversity:

“Access to higher education is critical for closing those gaps ... I believe excellence is achieved through diversity, and there are no great universities that do not embrace this principle,” Ray said.

Ray made brief reference to incidents at OSU this fall involving white students who painted their skin black during several football games to demonstrate their school spirit. OSU’s school colors are orange and black.

Although the students who participated in the “blackout Reser” event said they were not trying to make a racial statement, the incident provoked a strong response from other members of the community, who found the black face paint an offensive reminder of the minstrel shows. Such shows were most popular between the late 19th- to mid-20th century. They featured white comics and musicians who painted their faces black in a mockery of African-Americans and their culture.

Ray said the “blackout Reser” incident was a reminder that OSU is still not the community it needs to be for all people.

OSU graduate student Renee Roman Nose was among those disturbed by the “blackout Reser” events this fall. In a keynote speech at the peace breakfast, she pointed out that King often was accused of being a troublemaker because of his willingness to point out inequalities. She reminded the audience that King’s answer to that accusation was, “We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”

Roman Nose urged the audience to take King’s life as an example of how to face challenges.

“Martin Luther King showed us the strength we have when we work together for a common goal,” she said. “We must reach out to one another.”

OSU women’s basketball coach LaVonda Wagner spoke of her experiences as a woman of color at a predominantly white university, and how her job was made easier by the number of “life-enhancers” she’d met in Corvallis who have been willing to reach out to her.

Wagner said she wanted to be a dream maker like King, to help provide opportunities for the young women on her team.

“I have a dream: that we can all work together to help these young people make their dreams come true,” she said.

During the breakfast, two other “change-makers” were honored by the campus community. Kenneth Winograd, associate professor in the College of Education, was presented with the Phyllis S. Lee Award for his social justice work, and Roni Sue, program assistant for the Difference, Power and Discrimination program at OSU, received the Frances Dancy Hooks Award for her work on diversity and opportunity, both on campus and in the community.

Other MLK events take place during the week. For a full schedule, see http://www.oregonstate.edu/diversity/mlk.html.