Speakers present a different portrait of MLK

At last night's talk, two speakers urged the crowd to take a more-indepth look at Martin Luther King. The students and faculty members who attended last night's program at the Iron Gate Theater honoring Martin Luther King Jr. encountered a different portrait of the man typically revered by many Americans -- black and white alike. That was, in part, the idea behind the event, entitled "Reaching the Promised Land: What Universities and Students Can Do to Achieve Dr. King's Vision of Justice In America." The two speakers who addressed the crowd of more than 100 students and local residents at the Iron Gate Theater arrived at Penn with different backgrounds and different life experiences. Still, Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of African-American Studies at DePaul University, and Evelyn Hu-DeHart, chairwoman of the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado-Boulder, both stressed the importance of taking a more in-depth look at King's messages of equality and racial justice. "He was not the kind of sanitized, whitewashed 'We Shall Overcome,' 'I Have a Dream' man we have made him out to be," Dyson said. Along those lines, his new book, I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr., urges Americans to acknowledge King's complexities and move beyond the over-dramatized heroicism often assigned to the civil rights leader. "It's not necessary for us to invest in his perfection," Dyson said. Instead, he claimed, Americans should recognize that much of what made King such a powerful and effective leader was that he was able to overcome his "moral" flaws to achieve greatness. With a better understanding of King's views -- an understanding Dyson said is lacking in the arguments of Ward Connerly and other leading black opponents of affirmative action -- Americans must begin to think about how "all the other 'Others' are integrated into the race question." Dyson, who is also an ordained minister and acclaimed author, elicited largely positive responses from the audience. His style, which featured the colorful intonations of a preacher, even drew occasional "Amens" from audience members. College freshman Beandrea Davis said she "appreciated how he was unrehearsed; it made it really powerful." Fellow College freshman Charmelia Bond added, "Few people get to know the person behind the image." Following Dyson's speech, Hu-DeHart, who emigrated from China at a young age, spoke at length about the struggles of Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and other often neglected groups in the national dialogue on race. "Today, in the year 2000, America is not just black and white," Hu-DeHart said, emphasizing that "what and who is white, and even more so, what and who are black, is confusing and changing." Hu-DeHart noted that racial issues are increasingly as important on college campuses as they are in major cities. While minority presence on campuses has improved at a slow but steady rate, Hu-DeHart cited the failure of college administrators to take into account the more historical causes of current gaps in privilege and power. The event began with opening remarks by Provost Robert Barchi, who stressed the importance of acting on King's hope for racial equality. A 30-minute question-and-answer period, moderated by English Professor Farah Griffin, followed Hu-DeHart's lecture.