2000 26th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration

Bobby Joe Leaster, who served 15 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, will be the guest speaker at the Center for Reflective Practices (CRP) all-day conference on Saturday, the final event in MIT’s 26th annual celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The celebration’s main event is the annual breakfast at 7:30am tomorrow (February 3) in Morss Hall in Walker Memorial. The theme is “Engineering Bold Leadership For the 21st Century/A Blueprint for Full Participation in Academia, Government and Industry.”

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An exhibit designed by 30 students who participated in an IAP seminar coordinated by Tobie Weiner of political science. The exhibit, which will be assembled in sections, dramatizes the belief that the struggle for freedom begins with individual commitment. The student leader of the seminar is Edward R. Mitchell, a senior in mathematics.

Choir Director Darryll Maston leads the South Central Mass Choir in Lobby 7. The choral and dance program was part of MIT’s celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black History Month. Photo: Leonid Drozhinin, The Tech, 4 Feb 2000

MLK Visiting Professors welcomed
Robert J. Sales, News Office | December 13, 2000

Improve academic environment for minority students, MLK speakers urge
Robert J. Sales, News Office | February 9, 2000

MLK celebration to feature Leaster talk, music and exhibit
News Office | February 2, 2000

The Buried Truths of Martin and Malcolm

By Brice Smith, The Tech, 31 Mar 2000

With the 32nd anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. coming up on April 4, I wanted to take a little time to look back at what we know and what we don’t know about what happened to the civil rights movement.

The political and social climates at home and abroad were quite different in the sixties than they are today. Social movements, while producing great leaders who sought to fight government injustice, also greatly distressed the powers that be. The United States government turned to the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI, so successful at battling World War II sabotage, designed a counter-intelligence program which recent Freedom of Information Act requests have begun to reveal was intended to destabilize “radical” groups, mostly civil-rights organizations. By late 1967, the key target of the FBI’s southern offices was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

It was also during this time that politically motivated assassinations began to proliferate. I don’t claim that government was responsible, but thanks to the lack of investigation and the FBI’s covering up of evidence, we may never know the entire truth behind any of these murders. It was this climate of governmental interference and open hostility that surrounds the killings, particularly, of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

It is no coincidence that Martin and Malcolm were killed when they were. Both men were killed within one year of making a profound extension of their goals and their personal ideologies — Dr. King’s civil-rights views led him to openly oppose the war in Vietnam; Malcolm X’s increased focus on human rights discredited the American government in favor of the United Nations and the World Court.

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