Students paint banners to honor King

The banners heralded Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ideas of racial equality and unity across groups. Meeting on the eve of Martin Luther King Day, members from 15 student groups celebrated the fallen civil rights leader's memory by painting banners illustrating his ideals of racial equality and togetherness. Sponsored by the Program for Student Community Involvement, more than 70 people from Penn's Latino, African American, Hawaiian, white, lesbian, gay, bisexual and Jewish populations participated in the program. Members from several Greek and volunteer groups were also involved with the program. "We can see here the ideals of Dr. King taking shape before us," said Wendy Weiss, a College of General Studies senior. "It is a very small step toward the realization of his dream." Established in 1990, PSCI is designed to address the need for support and the promotion of social issues and community service involvement among University students. "We help people of different backgrounds and viewpoints come together in community and educational service and then grow from their experiences," said David Grossman, the program's director. "Today it is to unite them under the common goal of conveying the message of Dr. King." The banners, each featuring one of the slain civil rights leader's poignant sayings promoting racial harmony, will be hung along Locust Walk this week in commemoration of his work and ideals. For example, the West Philadelphia Involvement Corps's banner reads, "The greatest tragedy of social transition is not the glaring noisiness of so-called bad people, but the appalling silence of the so-called good people." The banners will allow all the diverse groups of the University to be represented under the single theme of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his beliefs in social equality and human rights, according to Nursing junior Liz McPherson. And Sadrac Colin, a member of an AmeriCorps group working with the University, added that as African Americans and people, "we haven't yet achieved King's dream." "There's still inequality, still racism, still hate but these banners and the quotes upon them are evidence that there still exists hope," he said. But other students saw the banners differently. "This is not a step toward Dr. King's dream, but a gesture," said College sophomore Linda DaCosta and Engineering senior LaShanta Johnson. "It cannot just be one day when you see a banner and think of his ideals, but if that one day starts a week and that week starts a year, then it is a step in the right direction." The banners are also representative of the University's increasing diversity, according to Weiss. "There was a time when there would be no banners for Dr. King, when there were few women, no blacks, no Asians, no Latinos on campus," she said. The program was indicative of King's intentions, said College senior James Wilburn, president of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., which once claimed King as a member. "We're here today for Dr. King and to me he meant that every race is a piece of a collage that comes together to form a beautiful picture, each bearing a different and significant part of the common goal of uplifting human kind," he added.