Addressing a well-filled Lehman Auditorium on Jan. 17, professor traced EMU’s history from the early 1940s and the first admission of black students, through the 1960s, when visiting black Mennonite activists challenged the white Mennonite community to raise their voices against racial inequality.

Before an even larger crowd on Jan. 20, professor (an expert on history and mission) spoke of the impact of King on the nation – indeed the world – but stressed that “we’ve domesticated him,” making him “palatable to our own image, our own dreams,” rather than responding to his call to address the “structural issues behind poverty.”

Both speakers shared a common theme: the dangers of adulation.

King’s posthumous transformation from man to superhero is “dangerous,” Sawin said, because such moral leaders are not “giants,” but regular people “who stumbled and wandered and worried as they strove to make a better world.”

“Take the first step”

Instead of comparing ourselves to King’s outsized image and yielding to feelings of fear and inadequacy, Sawin suggested following the example of King and those in the Eastern Mennonite community who struggled for integration: “Take the first step in faith,” Sawin said, quoting King. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.”

EMU’s predecessor, Eastern Mennonite College, took its first steps toward desegregation, in defiance of local and state law, in the late 1940s. This change was not without controversy within the Mennonite community: though EMC became the first historically white college in Virginia to reverse its racial policy and accept a black student in 1948, the did not lift its strictures on integrated worship, including shared communion, foot-washing, and the kiss of brotherhood, until 1955.

Facing social, financial and academic obstacles (including overt and covert racism), the first six black students did not stay to complete their degrees, based on Sawin’s search of EMC records. Local resident Peggy Webb was urged to head to for her first two years of college, before EMU belatedly let her enroll in 1950-51 and earn a degree in 1954. Her tenacity was surely influenced by her mother, Roberta Webb, a teacher and member of Broad Street Mennonite Church, who was a strong advocate of racial equality.

By the mid-1950s and 1960s, a handful of Mennonites – some from Eastern Mennonite, including Titus W. Bender ’57 – were active in the civil rights movement. (Bender, a professor emeritus who resides in Harrisonburg, spoke during chapel earlier in the week of his experiences as a pastor in the 1960s working on racial reconciliation efforts in Mississippi.) But while Mennonites were strong critics of the Vietnam War, their silence on civil rights eventually prompted King to level criticism. “Where have you Mennonites been?” he asked one church leader.

Prodded into action by the Hardings

The EMC community was eventually prompted into further action by African-American Mennonite activists Vincent and Rosemarie Harding (Vincent will speak on campus in February). During two visits to EMC in 1962 and 1963, the couple concluded that most white Mennonites were not aware of the effects of segregation. They challenged those who were aware to set aside their strict non-resistance practices to advocate for racial equality. In response, two professors formed an integrated committee that became largely responsible for the desegregation of Harrisonburg’s schools and hotels. Other Mennonite efforts followed, including attention to the subject by the official, and very popular, radio program of the Mennonite Church, “The Mennonite Hour.”

In his Monday chapel talk, Evans brought the discussion into the present by elaborating on Sawin’s suggestion that King’s image has been burnished, the jagged edges smoothed by the passage of time and the nation’s collective memory. King has been heavily memorialized – in the names of streets, schools and community centers; with larger-than-life statues; and in simplistic lessons for schoolchildren, said Evans. King is one of three Americans to be honored with a federal holiday. But these symbolic gestures have made him “less than the revolutionary he was.”

“By domesticating him, we’ve made him too big to imitate and perhaps too nice to matter,” Evans said. “Too many of us forget that though, today, King is revered, yesterday he was reviled.”

Motivated by divine discontent

Considered a Communist and an agitator, King was critical of white supremacy, economic exploitation, racial oppression, and worldwide violence. Though he advocated non-violence and passive resistance, King confronted white America with “anger, discontent, and maladjustment”– all qualities that Evans pointed out are removed from today’s popular image of King.

The collective memory of our nation has forever linked King to his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in August 1963 at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Yet the qualities required to be a dreamer, Evans said, are those of the perpetually dissatisfied, what King himself described as the “divine discontent.” These qualities made King a towering force of energy, charisma and inspiration, but they also made him dangerous – and eventually led to his death.

To best honor King, Evans said, see him as who he was: as the revolutionary thinker expressing the anger of moral outrage, as a man of normal stature rather than the moral giant, as a culpable human with faults and excesses, and as the perpetual dreamer unsatisfied with the inequities of the world.

And to best honor King, “do not let the memory of a giant King comfort us more than the history of this small man. We can’t be content with the domestication of MLK or what he stood for. Be maladjusted. Be divinely discontented” about social and economic inequalities here in our own community, Evans said. “For if we are truly to walk in the way of Martin Luther King Jr., the missionary, we must be willing to walk as he walked.”

For more information about the history of African Americans at EMU, see these stories and podcast:

Much pain, one big gain, from being an African American student at EMU in 1962-63

“Take the First Step in Faith: A History of Inclusion at EMU” – podcast featuring Mark Metzler Sawin

As you read Preston Knight’s excellent report on the naming of a major downtown street as Martin Luther King Jr. – republished here by permission of the Daily News Record – you may be interested to know that EMU participated in that effort, with its campus pastor, , serving on the task force that successfully urged Harrisonburg’s city council to rename Cantrell Avenue after Martin Luther King Jr. The leader in this renaming effort, Stan Maclin, got to know Burkholder during EMU’s January 2013 cross-city activities of “service and learning” in honor of MLK. Maclin then invited Burkholder to join him on the task force. Now another EMU staffer, Amy Knorr of the , has joined Maclin and Burkholder for ongoing work at racial justice and reconciliation in a group called the MLK Jr. Way Coalition. Remarks by at the dedication of Martin Luther King Jr. Way follow Knight’s report.

* * * *

Stan Maclin, while urging Harrisonburg officials last year to name a street after Martin Luther King Jr., said the “eyes of the nation” were on the Friendly City.

It may felt like hyperbole, but then Cantrell Avenue was renamed to “Martin Luther King, Jr. Way” and the letters of support began pouring in. They came from mayors in Baltimore and Memphis, from James Madison University graduates living elsewhere and from churches in the Shenandoah Valley.

U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Virginia Democrats, also gave their written support, and The Associated Press made mention of the renaming in a recent story.

So, Maclin was right then. For several hundred people who heard him speak at an official renaming ceremony Monday, they hope the city resident also is right about the significance of the event.

“It’s humbling to know that this is not the end,” Maclin said at JMU’s Memorial Hall. “This is by no means closure. This is much, much more than a [street]. It’s the building of … making this one of the best cities in the United States of America.”

The city and a group of residents, called the Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition, hosted the ceremony, fittingly on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Several speakers highlighted the need to follow “King’s way” of living, and not just the avenue formerly known as Cantrell.

“We can achieve more and have a better life if we value each other and if we work together,” JMU President Jonathan Alger said.

Cantrell officially assumed its new name on Jan. 1. City Council approved the change in August, about six months after Maclin proposed honoring the slain civil rights leader in Harrisonburg.

A “people’s inspired movement” should get credit for effecting change, he said Monday.

“This city is unique and it has something other cities across this country do not have, and that is such a vast array of diversity,” Maclin said.

Councilman Charles Chenault, 61, a lifelong Harrisonburg resident, said the name change was but a “down payment” on giving back to those who faced discrimination, particularly elders of Newtown, the city’s Northeast neighborhood and an early settlement for freed slaves.

That group, he said, includes Doris Allen, 87, a 1945 graduate of what’s now the Lucy F. Simms Continuing Education Center. Although she didn’t mention it while speaking to the crowd on Monday, she has previously talked about living at a time when black women entered Harrisonburg drugstores, the theater and the hospital from the back of the building.

A year ago today, which was Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2013, Allen was celebrating President Barack Obama’s inauguration to a second term as the nation’s first black president.

“We may still have a long way to go, but we’ve come a long, long way,” she said last year.

The street renaming would seem to bring Harrisonburg and, as Maclin correctly stated, the nation along even further.

“It’s not an occasion for bragging. It’s not an occasion for lording it over other people. It’s a time for new learning and teaching,” said Fred Gibson, a city resident who befriended King while they studied at Crozer Theological Seminary near Chester, Pa. “Martin’s way is an inclusive way in which no one is left out or behind.”

* * * *

Excerpts from President Loren Swartzendruber’s remarks at the Jan. 20 ceremony:

I learned from Dr. King and others in my own theological tradition that one cannot separate one’s faith from the call to social justice for everyone in our world. As Menno Simons, for whom my church tradition is named, put it so succinctly,

True evangelical faith clothes the naked; it feeds the hungry;? it comforts the sorrowful; ?it shelters the destitute; ?it aids and consoles the sad; ?it does good to those who do it harm;? it serves those that harm it;? it prays for those who persecute it.

Here we gather in a community demonstration of solidarity all too rare in our polarized and divided society. I am proud to lead the first [historically white] university in the Commonwealth of Virginia to enroll students of color. Martin Luther King would have been pleased that my predecessors stood up to the prevailing opposition of their time to such a move. In the context of our current divisions I take great courage from Dr. King and from others who dared to stand tall in the face of conflict.

“Events throughout the week will focus on the MLK Jr. way of emphasizing issues of justice, pacifism, Christian faith, activism and service, and relationship building,” said Brian Martin Burkholder, campus pastor at 草莓社区.

will join with area leaders in the renaming and dedication of Martin Luther King Jr. Way, formerly Cantrell Avenue, on Monday, Jan. 20, at noon.

Additional programs include presentations by , professor of history, and , professor of history and mission at , discussion forums and many community gatherings.

All events are free and open to the public. Those interested in attending should meet at the event location.

Wednesday, Jan. 15

10-10:30 a.m. University Chapel: “Shaped Deeply by MLK, Jr.”

In what ways was the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. formative or influential in the lives of local people? What is the impact of MLK Jr. in today’s society? For what reasons was it important for Harrisonburg to rename a significant street the Martin Luther King Jr. Way? Come hear first-person narratives from local persons who have been shaped by MLK, Jr.

Stan Maclin, director of the Harriott Tubman Cultural Center, and Titus Bender, professor emeritus, will be the panelists.

Location: Lehman Auditorium on the campus of EMU.

Thursday, Jan. 16

4-6 p.m. March Out and Speak Out at James Madison University (JMU)

March through the JMU campus and speak out about King’s life and legacy. This year’s theme is “His courage will not skip this generation.” Sponsored by the .

Location: Starts at the James Madison statue near Varner House and ends at Transitions, Warren Hall.

Information: Call 540-568-6636 or visit

Friday, Jan. 17

10-10:30 a.m. EMU University Chapel: “Take the First Step in Faith: A History of Inclusion” by Mark Metzler Sawin, PhD.

Location: Lehman Auditorium

11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Mix it Up at Lunch conversations

Choose to sit at one of the round tables with a mixture of people from the campus and community for guided conversation related to EMU’s racial heritage as presented in chapel. Meal passes available for participating community members and for students without a meal plan.

Coordinated by Beth Lehman, PhD, and Kathy Evans, PhD, professors in the EMU education department.

Location: Northlawn cafeteria on the campus of EMU. and – Dining Hall located in lower level; view available visitors’ parking by clicking display option on lower left.

Sunday, Jan. 19

Worship in local congregations in the Harrisonburg Northeast Neighborhood

– at 9:15 a.m. Buses depart from EMU University Commons parking lot at 10 a.m.

Location: 400 Kelley St., Harrisonburg, Va. 22802

– at 11 a.m. Buses depart from EMU University Commons parking lot at 10:30 a.m.

Location: Corner of Effinger and Sterling, Harrisonburg, Va. 22802

– at 11 a.m. Buses depart EMU University Commons parking lot at 10:30 a.m.

Location: 184 Kelley St., Harrisonburg, Va. 22802

– Church of God of Prophecy at 12:30 p.m. Buses depart EMU University Commons parking lot at noon.

Location: 386 E Gay St., Harrisonburg, Va. 22802

3 p.m. Serving the Community Dr. King’s Way

Join the Harrisonburg and Rockingham Chapter of the NAACP for its annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. community program with guest speaker Pastor Warne Dawkins from Shiloh Baptist Church in Waynesboro, Va. Music by the Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition Choir. Freewill offering benefiting The Salvation Army shelter. Transportation is provided. Buses will depart EMU University Commons parking lot at 2:30 p.m., and return at 5 p.m.

Location: Lucy Simms Continuing Education Center

Monday, Jan. 20

8 a.m. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Breakfast program

The Sigma Gamma Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. hosts “Back to Basics: Managing a Household Budget.” Continental breakfast provided. Donations accepted.

Location: Lucy Simms Continuing Education Center

10-10:40 a.m. MLK Jr. Day Chapel: “A Domesticated King” by David Evans, PhD. An after-chapel discussion forum will follow.

Location: Lehman Auditorium

12 p.m. City of Harrisonburg MLK, Jr. Way Street Renaming Dedication Program

President Swartzendruber is one of the speakers at this event hosted by the City of Harrisonburg. Transportation is provided. Buses depart from EMU library circle at 11:30 a.m., and return at 1:30 p.m., for those who do not want to stay for the ribbon cutting and unity march. They will also return to pick up those who do wish to stay for ribbon cutting and march.

Location: JMU’s Memorial Hall Auditorium

1:30 p.m. Ribbon-cutting ceremony by Harrisonburg City Council followed by a unity march from Memorial Hall to Main Street and back to Memorial Hall. Hot chocolate and rest available at the .

Location: Meet outside JMU Memorial Hall

3 p.m. Adopt a Stream, Black’s Run clean-up

Join the EMU and departments and club to clean up a stretch of Black’s Run that flows through the northeast neighborhood. Gloves and bags will be provided.

Location: Meet at the Science Center at 2:45 p.m. for carpooling or anytime just outside at 621 N. Main Street, Harrisonburg.

7-9 p.m. MLK Lecture by Dr. Steve Perry

Dr. Steve Perry is the 2014 Martin Luther King Jr. formal program speaker. Featured in CNN’s “Black in America” series, Perry is the founder and principal of in Hartford, Conn. Capital Prep has sent 100 percent of its predominantly low-income, minority, first generation high-school graduates to four-year colleges every year since its first class graduated in 2006.

Perry is an education contributor for CNN and MSNBC, an Essence magazine columnist, bestselling author and host of the No. 1 docudrama for TVONE, “Save My Son.”

Sponsored by the JMU Center for Multicultural Student Services.

Location: JMU Wilson Hall Auditorium

Tuesday, Jan. 21

All day – Come Across the Bridge dialogue

Engage with black community leaders, barbers and each other for lively dialogue around issues, dynamics and opportunities related to the MLK, Jr. Way at Tyrone Sprague’s downtown barbershop (6th floor of 2 South Main Street) and at the historic Blakey barbershop in the northeast neighborhood (230 Community Street). You can get a haircut too!

Hosts: Stan Maclin of the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center and Jered Lyons, EMU multicultural student advisor.

Thursday, Jan. 23

8 p.m. follow-up conversation/discussion – “The Way of MLK, Jr. – What’s Next?”

Coordinated by Amy Knorr, practice coordinator for the .

Location: Common Grounds Coffeehouse on the first floor of EMU’s University Commons.

More info

Admission to all programs is free. For more information on activities related to MLK observances, or for a full schedule of events, visit the or call at 540-432-4115.

of day’s events (please be patient while it loads).

A tour of historic Newtown in northeastern Harrisonburg introduced participants to the city’s original African-American community that was first settled by newly freed slaves. The tour included stops at the segregation-era Lucy Simms School, Bethel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church, Newtown Cemetery and , an anti-poverty organization.

Students packed a black-owned barbershop in downtown Harrisonburg to interact with longtime barber Tyrone Sprague, who likes to mix his haircuts with lively conversation. Several students got a haircut.

Other learning tours took students to , , and the .

A group of students cleaned a stretch of Black’s Run, a stream that starts near the EMU campus and winds through Harrisonburg. They concentrated on the stretch through the northeast neighborhood.

Other students helped prepare the weekly “community meal for everyone” at Our Community Place. One of the organization’s many ministries is a Monday meal for anyone who comes—homeless as well as non-homeless people. There is no distinction between the servers and those being served.

The observance of King Day, a national holiday named for the legendary civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968, coincided this year with President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. Obama, by personal example, has popularized service projects on King Day.

“We made an intentional decision to broaden the ownership of Martin Luther King Day from the multicultural services office to the entire university and the greater EMU neighborhood,” said , director of , “because the legacy of Dr. King connects widely with the mission and vision of EMU as a learning community.”

Collaborating in the planning were EMU staff and student organizations as well as the Northeast Neighborhood Association and .

EMU’s keynote speaker this year was , a nationally known Christian activist and best-selling author from Philadelphia. He spoke in chapel and led two forums, all three of which drew large crowds.

“Dr. King kept believing his dream of equality even when it was unpopular and when it got him jailed,” said Claiborne. “And now we must build the better world that Jesus dreamed of.”

“Building that better world is much more than giving charity and performing service,” he said. “It is working for justice in a world where the rich continue to get richer while the poor are getting poorer.”

In their fight for justice, though, Claiborne warned his listeners not to fight the people who disagree with them. Jesus interacted positively with all kinds of people on all sides of the issues, he said.

“The revolution of God sets the poor and oppressed free while also setting the rich and powerful free,” he added.

Claiborne is a founding partner of , a faith community in inner-city Philadelphia that has helped to birth and connect radical Christian communities around the world. His books include The Irresistible Revolution, Jesus for President and Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers. He travels extensively, speaking over 100 times a year about peacemaking, social justice and Jesus.

Other King Day events at EMU:

• Readings of King’s letter from the Birmingham jail that he wrote 50 years ago this spring after his arrest for anti-segregation activities—followed by discussion.
• “Mix-it-up” lunch with guided conversation in the EMU cafeteria with a mixture of people from the campus and community.
• Collection of items for flu prevention for Harrisonburg-Rockingham Free Clinic.
• Collection of health kit items and sturdy shoes for Our Community Place.
• Art exhibit on the civil rights movement, titled And Freedom for All.
• Coffeehouse conversation with a panel of Harrisonburg residents who remember King first-hand.

[Editor’s note: The Daily News Record also ran a piece on Shane Claiborne and MLK Day of Service and Learning which can be found on the .]

Mullet, a 19-year-old sophomore from Berlin, Ohio, joined fellow students Monday afternoon helping to clean up Blacks Run in Harrisonburg.

The volunteer project was one of more than a dozen events organized by EMU to honor the late civil rights leader on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“The whole day is really booked,” said Mullet, a biology major. “I think EMU has done a good job promoting what he promoted in his speeches: service.”

The centerpiece of the university’s festivities was a chapel service, led by Christian author and peace activist Shane Claiborne.

During his speech in Lehman Auditorium, he acknowledged that much has been done to promote King’s message of equality and nonviolence worldwide.

“It’s a beautiful thing to celebrate …? but we have a long way to go,” said the 37-year-old Kensington, Pa., resident.

Claiborne challenged those in attendance to take time to act when they see injustice or someone in need. Often, he said, people are too wrapped up in their busy schedules.

Sometimes, Claiborne said, we have to ignore our schedules and answer the call to action.

“Allow space for interruption,” he said.

Before ending the service, he played a recording his friend made of Iraqi youths singing “We Shall Overcome” in Arabic.

“It’s absolutely magical,” he said. “We pray that we shall overcome one day.”

Throughout the day, the university hosted a variety of events, including the reading of King’s “letter from Birmingham Jail,” and service projects.

While the campus has celebrated MLK Day in the past, Brian Burkholder, campus pastor, said this year the university expanded its efforts to help build relationships with the community.

“Martin Luther King’s legacy connects deeply with the values, mission and vision of EMU …? the call for justice …? for peace building,” Burkholder said.

Courtesy Daily News Record, Jan. 22, 2013

[Editor’s note: EMU freelance writer Steve Shenk also published an article on Shane Claiborne and MLK Day of Service and Learning which can be found on the .]