More than 500 University of Michigan students, faculty and community members gathered in Hill Auditorium Monday morning to listen to the 39th Annual Keynote Memorial Lecture in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. The event featured a conversation led by Daphne C. Watkins, professor of social work, and special guest Erika Alexander, most known for her work as an actress and political activist.
The symposium’s theme this year was “Restless Dissatisfaction: An Urgent Call for the Pursuit of Justice and Equality” and the event was co-sponsored by the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives and Ross School of Business. Tabbye Chavous, vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, offered opening remarks and reminded the audience of King’s mission.
“He urged us to resist complacency and remain dissatisfied with the injustices that persist in the world,” Chavous said. “This restlessness must drive us to challenge the status quo and actively build a more just and equitable future. Dr. King’s words compel us to confront injustice in all of its forms: racial, economic and social, and to bridge the gap between the world as it is and as it should be.”
During the conversation, Watkins asked Alexander how King’s notion of divine discontent shows up in her own political activism. Alexander said she is passionate about pushing for diverse political representation, which stems from her acknowledgement of our multicultural and multiracial world.
“Why would we want a monogamous space?” Alexander said. “We are in America and it is an amazing experiment that is set upon us, that is our burden, and it also sets us free. And one of the things that you just have to accept in this world is that …, humans came together in all sorts of wonderful and horrible ways to create a republic that spoke to our diversity, our differences.”
Alexander followed by emphasizing that the need for diverse leaders should not only be a conversation during election years.
“We’re going to need more of those examples, because right now, there’s patriarchy … there’s racism and classism and all those things acting upon us all the time and you can see when it’s time to vote what people are really thinking,” Alexander said. “But that’s not the time to discuss it. You need to discuss it in the in-between time, in the meantime.”
Engineering sophomore Alexander Veal closed the event and urged the audience to get more involved with the University’s annual MLK symposium through other events on campus.
“(Alexander and Watkins have) laid such a strong foundation for all the many events and numerous speaker events and activities on our campus as part of the University of Michigan’s annual MLK symposium that will take place today and in the future,” Veal said. “I encourage everyone, strongly and personally, to participate in these as much as possible.”
U-M alum Maia Jackson told The Michigan Daily that she has been attending the annual MLK Symposium since her sophomore year at the University and it has a unique way of bringing the community together.
“(The University) is so prominent in the Ann Arbor community but folks from Detroit, like myself, come down for events like this and it really brings the community together, not just students,” Jackson said. “Having an open space for students, faculty, staff, folks who just want to come and see, and then having these people like Erika who’s really going to say what she thinks and speak her mind, I think it all really ties together to provide a really important message.”
Jackson said that this year’s MLK Symposium theme made her reflect on how people, especially young people, can leverage their dissatisfaction and create lasting change.
“It makes me think of student activism a lot and how a lot of student organizations and students on campus have been pushing for things for years,” Jackson said. “Even speaking back to The Black Action Movements, there are things from that movement that still resonate today. Especially restless dissatisfaction, we’re continuing that motion from the 1970s and before and after, and we’re continuing it today.”
