Annual celebrations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy at MIT
1999 25th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration
Theme
Keynote
Video
Exhibit
This installation illustrates the future through the eyes of Dr. King, as seen from his podium at the Lincoln Memorial, the site of his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. Photos of other civil and human rights leaders are featured around the reflection pool. Viewers can write their names on the figures of audience members, indicating their support for the dreams of a better world. Photo: Tobie Weiner
MIT News
“MLK celebration to feature exhibit in Lobby 7”
Robert J. Sales, News Office
January 13, 1999
The Lobby 7 exhibit is the brainchild of Eto Otitigbe, a senior in mechanical engineering and a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership award winner last year. The exhibit will be installed from February 1-4. Musical events are planned for Lobby 7 at noon and 5pm on February 4, the day of the breakfast. A panel discussion involving the designers will be held on February 5. It will be open to the MIT community.
“The MLK Design Seminar will encourage interaction and foster communication between members of the MIT community and members of diverse backgrounds,” said Mr. Otitigbe, the project coordinator. “The installation will be designed to confront all who navigate through Lobby 7 each day. This unavoidable confrontation and the notion of physically being stopped will make people deal with the issues that the installation represents.”
The seminar’s participants will meet daily during IAP in the design studio to discuss concept, modeling, design, construction and installation. The exhibit will be shaped, in part, by discussions among the 15 students working on the project and social activists and artists from MIT and the surrounding community.
The students participated in a “mini-course” on the civil rights movement last week, directed by Tobie Weiner of political science, the Lobby 7 event coordinator for the Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. Celebration Coordinating Committee.
“They watched some of the Eyes on the Prize videos and a selection from the Chicano series and completed readings on the civil rights movement as well as on other struggles for civil and human rights in the US and other parts of the world,” said Ms. Weiner, an MLK Leadership Award winner in 1998 along with Mr. Otitigbe.
“The seminar and installation will assemble many people around the theme of remembrance of Dr. King’s struggle,” Mr. Otitigbe said in describing the project. “It will focus on the principles of social justice, economic justice and human rights — three pillars that Dr. King used as a foundation for his struggle. It is important to bring in various members of the MIT community and the Cambridge/Boston community to aid in the development of this task. The invited guests will be people who through their work have sought to communicate ideas similar to those Dr. King lived by.”
Graduate student Lawrence Sass of architecture is the design advisor for the installation. Associate Dean Arnold Henderson Jr. and Gertrude Morris of housing are also involved in the project.
The Tech
February 5, 1999
The MLK Committee decorated Lobby 7 to look like the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where Dr. King delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech.
The installation, entitled “Reflections: A tribute to all individuals who have supported the struggle for human rights,” was sponsored by the MLK committee and designed by a group of students led by Eto S. Otitigbe ’99.
The mirrored surfaces representing the reflecting pool in the Mall were designed to “involve the people in the installation so you’re looking at yourself from a physical perspective as well as from a deeper one,” said Kerone H. Peat ’00, part of the group that set up the Lobby 7 display.
Students appreciated the music and the “Reflections” display.
“I feel very moved by the music and that the installation [of the D.C. scene] has come to life, I feel our purpose being vindicated,” Peat said.
Lobby 7 art installation, gospel concerts add to celebration
Sarah H. Wright, News Office
February 10, 1999
Reflections, an installation in Lobby 7 to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was designed to “confront everyone who passed through to reflect on the struggles that have affected their lives,” said Eto Otitigbe, a senior in mechanical engineering and design coordinator for the project.
Reflections filled the chilly, cavernous Infinite Corridor entryway from February 3-5. Its contemplative message of hope was amplified into one of resounding joy by two gospel groups on Thursday, Feb. 4.
The installation and two gospel concerts comprised the post-breakfast celebration following MIT’s 25th annual event to honor the life and legacy of Dr. King.
Three dramatic design elements established a memorial space to Dr. King, especially evoking the site at which Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.
A pair of long, low, triangular barriers covered in heavy silver material extended through Lobby 7 from the outside doors to the Infinite Corridor entrance. The shimmering, knee-high “roofs” suggested the long reflecting pool in Washington, DC. They simultaneously narrowed the steady traffic flow and shifted each walker’s gaze to enlarged photo images, hung at second-floor level over each Lobby 7 hallway entrance.
The photo images showed two scenes from Washington associated with the “I Have a Dream” speech: over the door out to Massachusetts Avenue hung an image of the Lincoln Memorial; over the Infinite Corridor was one of the Washington Monument.
The height and placement of the two Washington images, combined with the twin “reflecting pools,” gave participants both a sense of being contained within a historic space and also a sense of what Dr. King saw as he looked out on the crowd.
The third design element, sharply rendered black cutouts of figures dancing, praying, laboring and bowing, marked each of the four corners of the lobby. The dramatic silhouettes, reminiscent of the sculptural dance forms created by choreographer Alvin Ailey, “climbed” each of the four columns in Lobby 7, forming pillars of people standing, literally, on the strength of those who had gone before them.
Lawrence Sass, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Architecture and Planning, and Tobie Weiner, undergraduate administrator in the Department of Political Science, served as advisors to the MLK Design Seminar. Other advisors included Dick Fenner, manager of the Pappalardo Laboratories; Arthur Ganson, artist-in-residence; and Edward McCluney, director of the Student Art Association.
“The MLK project symbolizes a very necessary acknowledgment of the ideals and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Mr. Otitigbe.
Mr. Otitigbe, whose “passion in life is for the arts, with a deep interest in science and technology,” described his experience working on the MLK installation as “an opportunity for me to merge my passion and my education in order to address a social problem.
“The social problem in this case was the high level of apathy amongst the MIT community. I feel that initiative counters apathy and the MLK celebration is a time when the initiative of Dr. King and various members of the MIT community is celebrated,” he said.
The hardest part of the design process, he said, was “integrating the ideas of a large group of people into one single design concept.” Yet Reflections did achieve its goal.
“The most successful aspect of the installation was that it, indeed, confronted people as they passed through Lobby 7. Many people saw their reflection in the abstractions of the pools, and they related their reflection to the people on the columns. It was a chance for many to consider all the people who struggled and even died in order for them to be here today,” Mr. Otitigbe said.
Other design team members included Oreoluwa Adeyemi, a junior in management; seniors Alan Feng and Aaron Winthers of mechanical engineering; juniors Daniel W. Rodriguez and Andrew A. Ryan and senior David McGill of electrical engineering and computer science; Erica Imani Shelton, a senior in chemical engineering; Jose Antonio Vera, a senior in economics and mechanical engineering; Elton Dean, a sophomore in nuclear engineering; juniors Puja Gupta and Kerone Peat and senior Ayana Mohammad of chemical engineering; and Ed Mitchell, a junior in mathematics.
Three students from Wellesley College — Bande Mangaliso, Monique Calahan and Rachana Khandelwal — also participated.
The team experience was meaningful both personally and intellectually, members said.
“Being in the design team has been quite enlightening. It did bring about an opportunity to focus on a social issue — civil rights — with an application of the arts and technology, an interesting concept,” said Mr. Adeyemi.
“When Eto approached me with the idea of constructing an installation in Lobby 7, I was very enthusiastic. This would give me the opportunity to really focus my design skills,” said Mr. Feng. “When he told me it was a Martin Luther King memorial for Black History Month, I kind of hesitated. I asked myself, ‘Do I belong in this group that is trying to raise the awareness of black history?’ The only answer I could think of was a question: ‘Why not?’ Civil rights have been an issue to this very day with blacks and with Asians.
“I don’t have a loud voice, but I’m trying to represent a very silent minority. In having some of my ideas realized in this installation, I feel like my voice is being heard,” he said.
Mr. Rodriguez took the MLK Design Seminar “in order to take a different route than the usual technological class. I wanted to open up my artistic side and felt that taking part in this class and honoring one of my most distinguished frat brothers, Martin Luther King Jr., was the way to do it,” he said.
Mr. Rodriquez is vice president of the Rho Nu chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha and co-chair of the Black Students Union.
Two gospel groups performed in Lobby 7 as part of the post-breakfast celebration. Ain’a That Good News, a Gospel quartet, performed at noon, filling the busy lobby with an hour-long history of gospel music.
Ain’a That Good News performed well-known songs, including “Oh, Happy Day,” “This Little Light of Mine” and “He’s Got the Whole World,” a favorite of Dr. King’s often sung by Mahalia Jackson.The South Mass Choir, a full choir directed by Darryll Maston and accompanied by two keyboard players, a violinist and a drummer, performed from 5-6pm.
The success of Reflections as a setting for both contemplation and celebration was complete when the South Mass Choir sang “I Believe I Can Fly.” Not only were audience members clapping, swaying and singing along, but way up on the third-floor balcony, overlooking the crowd, members of a cleaning crew were dancing and waving their hands as well.
“Lobby 7 has never been like this,” commented Paul Parravano, co-director of the Office of Government and Community Relations.
This year’s post-breakfast celebration was coordinated by Arnold Henderson, associate dean and section head, Counseling and Support Services; Trudy Morris, house manager, Office of Residential Life and Student Life programs; and Ms. Weiner.
Ms. Weiner also serves as the program administrator for the MIT Washington Summer Internship Program and as coordinator for the local MIT Political Science Internship Program . She has been advisor to a freshman seminar entitled, “The Civil Rights Movement and Beyond” for eight years.
Speaking of Reflections, she said, “We hope the IAP MLK Design Seminar will be an annual event.”
Conference
Cyber Sisters and Virtual Visionaries
MIT News
An MIT celebration of women of color in the information age
Robert J. Sales, News Office | January 21, 1999
“Cyber Sisters and Virtual Visionaries,” a day-long, interactive conference at MIT’s Stratton Student Center on Saturday, Feb. 6, will bring together women of color who are actively involved in the design, production, distribution and use of information technology. The event is open to women of color age 15 and older.
The conference is sponsored by the MIT Community Fellows Program as part of MIT’s 25th annual celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The goals of conference are:
To demonstrate to young women of color that they can develop careers, power, and connections to others in the information age;
To forge connections and mentoring relationships between women and girls of color who are engaged in evolving technologies;
To build an online resource for women of color interested in information technology;
To develop interest in a national conference on “Women of Color in the Information Age.”
Participants will explore and discuss their work in information technology, exchange information and ideas, and create a jumping-off point for further discussion and networking. A website will be created to provide the means to involve more women and girls of color in information technology.
A tangible product will be completed by the end of the day–e.g., an installation piece, a website, or a systematic means for including more women and girls of color in information technology.
Press
The Tech
Lecture Review: “Langston and Martin,” 26 February 1999
Head of NAACP Speaks at the 25th Annual MLK Celebration, 5 February 1999
MIT News Office
MLK Visiting Profs for 1999-2000 honored at reception, 17 November 1999
Mfume challenges students to work for Dr. King’s goals, 10 February 1999
25th MLK celebration tomorrow with Mfume as keynote speaker, 3 February 1999
MLK event honors three awardees, includes conference, 27 January 1999
MLK celebration to feature exhibit in Lobby 7, 13 January 1999