Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy extends far beyond the 1960s civil-rights movement and a national day off from work.
King forever changed the face of social justice, explained Penn History professor Mary Frances Berry, in a speech on King's impact on the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender community at the LGBT Center last night.
Berry, a former chairwoman of the Civil Rights Commission, examined the connections between the civil-rights and the LGBT movements and insisted that "the battle for opportunity without discrimination has not yet been won."
Afterwards, three student leaders of the Penn LGBT community offered their responses to Berry's speech, and audience members asked questions of the panel. Much of the discussion turned to the idea of creating broader coalitions to fight discrimination of all kinds.
"Equality cannot be achieved unless we end oppression against all people," said College senior Alexis Howe, a member of the student panel.
LGBT Center Director Bob Schoenberg emphasized the importance of holding dialogues like this, explaining that members of the LGBT community are "beneficiaries of Dr. King's wisdom."
But there still is controversy over whether King would have supported the LGBT rights movement.
In 2004, his daughter participated in a march for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and many black religious leaders have argued that King's religion would have prevented him from advocating for the LGBT community.
Berry countered that, while King was a religious man, he was also a human-rights leader. She added that, as such, he supported the rights of all humans, not just those of people of color.
While no one explicitly described King's influence on the LGBT rights movement, his efforts "set the stage for what it looks like to be an activist," said Dyresha Harris, a graduate student in the College of General Studies.
Berry concluded by saying that great strides must be made in order to live up to King's legacy.
"Some day in our country, we will have liberty and justice for all, consistent with the vision of Martin Luther King," she said.
At the reception after the talk, College junior Malek Lewis, co-chairman of Queer People of Color, said he enjoyed hearing Berry speak about the intersections between LGBT and civil-rights issues and the need for a political movement in the place of apathy.
The event was a part of the two-week-long Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Symposium on Social Change.
