The_Rambler_1999-03

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SUNY Farmingdale Celebrates Martian Luther King Jr. Day
by: Christopher Collora
On Thursday, March 11th, SUNY Farmingdale healed a tribute to Martian Luther King Jr. Day with a presentation entitled: "Who Will Stand?: A
call to Leadership". The celebration was healed in Rooseveh Halls Little Theater and featured several speakers. Beginning at 11:10, the event drew
in an impressive number of students and faculty members, even News 12 covered the event.
It began with an opening by the SGA President, followed by a welcome by Acting SUNY Farmingdale President Dr. Michael Vmciguerra.
Following an invocation by Dr. Littenberg, the Voices of Women of Color presented a reading and dance performance based on the Tony Moraset
novel Beloved. The main event however, was the keynote speaker Alfonso Wyatt, introduced by SGA Advisor Mr. Nick Gorden. Mr. Wyatt is a
counselor, educator, and public speaker, he believes in addressing the needs of young people today. He came not with a speech, but a message of
hope exemplified by Dr. King. He went over the events theme: Who will stand? A call to Leadership. Then he recalled an event in his own life, when
he went to see the Morrain Motel in Tennessee where Martian Luther King Jr. was assassinated. He recalled thinking about what Martian would say
about today's world, what he would say about the "conditions that we have allowed to become ordinary, people divided by differences which would
allow them to kill one another". He further stated that "some times, people have to stand alone, and stand up and be an individual, and refuse to be
manipulated by the powers that be, or the powers that want to be"... Who will stand and exemplify what it means to live in a democratic society,
where we are not judged by physical properties. He stressed that we should make our education paramount and that we should not settle for medioc-racy
but maximize our skills and talents. He reminded us that Martian Luther King Jr. talked about dreams, about equality, about a human communi-ty,
which did not differentiate what people thought separated each other. He reminded the older members of the audience about the issues of the 60's
when they were young, and suggested that our generation had the same issues and feelings, and we will inherit the reigns of leadership. To our gen-eration,
he suggested our education;" that useless information we were given was trying to teach us how to think, how to think in the abstract, how to
understand the fundamental, how to analyze the issues that concern and threaten the society we will inherit, how to solve problems some of natures,
human, the problems that divide people and government.". He also stated that "It's all right to have dreams, but dreams that just stay in the back of
your mind, tend to become a nightmare; dreams that have no truth or means of actualization, too many get stuck in there". In conclusion, he suggest-ed
that Martian Luther King Jr. left the seeds of faith in the human condition, seeds of love; the challenge of loving all of Gods creation, and the seed
of hope. Dr. Barry Capella closed the event by stating "that by ensuring the ideals of equality, justice, and love, as well as bemg a strong individual,
we can honor and help preserve the dream of Martian Luther King Jr."
Following the event, several people commented on the messages involved. One student stated that she learned "that it's about doing things, you
have to be yourself and go out and make your dreams happen for yourself" Mr. Wyatt stated "It's really important that young people to continue to
translate Dr. Kings dream, that they continue to push for equality and justice so that the dream does not become a nightmare"
Dean Fergason stated: " The message as a challenge was right to the point, we're looking to continue the dream of Dr. King... What we're trj'ing to
do, being the oldest public college on Long Island... is to make sure that as we educate people, they keep in mind the legacy, because we won't be
here forever. We hope that your leaders will understand the sacrifices that we made on behalf of everyone and that they take the knowledge that they
gained and stand for leadership..." Neil Kellman, SGA President, who opened the event, stated that he hoped that students would understand the
meaning of Dr. Kings teachings about unity, not just the African-American struggle, but the struggle for human rights as a whole. In response to the
question "As SGA President, what do you hope, this event will bring to the college?", Neil responded: " Unity...I don't think that one program is
going to do it all, but even now 1999, there is still some racial tension on this campus... I hope that soon we can get rid of that with programs like
this."
"I have been to the mountain top, and I have seen the promise land...". Throughout the 1960's there were explosions of activity surrounding the
issue of Human Rights, not civil rights, but the" human rights of people who were diverse from the mainstream. The origins of human diversity flow
from our own fear and difficult accepting of differences, whether they are of culture, religion, origins, economic class, or race. In every culture, there
are idealists who climb that mountain, who dream the dream, who realize more than the average person of the day. From Gahndi, to Einstein, to
Socrates, to Jesus Christ himself, there have always been people who have stood up and, and these people have started revolutionary movements in
society, getting the ball moving. It's time for all of us to take a stand in our own lives and change for the better.
I write this as an observer, looking towards the actions of our parent generation who lived through this. We are the children of a new age, some
may call us generation X, but the majority of us have grown up more tolerant and blind to differences, not oblivious, just less judgmental. Around
SUNY Farmingdale there is no denying the rich diversity and eclectic grouping of individuals, not only of background, but of age, religion, sex, and
race. But the people of today are slowly evolving to see in the light of idealists and geniuses like Martian Luther King Jr. There are those who walk
among us, with the same enlightened point of view as Dr. King, and a great deal more then there were before. Look on the verge of the new millen-nium,
we may not be driving spaceships or have robots, but there is still a level of human mental evolution that is beginning to take hold. Hopefully,
over the course of the next century, people will realize that we are all individuals and that we all can be ourselves without fear of letting our differ-ences
divide us. Maybe one day we will live the dream of Martian Luther King Jr.
Thy BiQlQgiyai R^voktiPn
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