On Thursday, Jan. 15, EMU’s Martin Luther King Day celebration will kick off with a commemorative march. Marchers will gather at 5:45 p.m. at the north side of the Student Center and will start marching at 6 p.m.
The LBC-approved march will take students around campus and stop at check points with relevance to the overall theme of MLK week, "Breaking the Illusion: The Movement Continues."
“One of the points is the Ampitheater,” said Tiran Burrell, the three-year student co-chair. “That is where marches happen on campus. Another point is the MLK statue. Metaphorically speaking, it’s the middle point. Usually the march ends with MLK but if the movement continues, that means we need to move forward and take MLK’s dream and legacy and move forward.”
The march is one of the longest running events in Eastern’s 29-year MLK week history. It gives students the experience of what civil rights activists have to physically fight for.
“It gives a nostalgic feel to what was going on during these times that we only know about because most of us weren’t alive during it,” Burrell said. “It lets you get a first-hand experience with the importance of marching and how people around campus pay attention to people who are marching for a purpose. It is one of the most effective types of protest.”
To help marchers stay warm in the cold weather, hot chocolate will be provided.
A paneled discussion will follow the march in the Student Center Auditorium in the hopes of creating solutions to social, economic and educational problems impacting the African American community.
