This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Remembered

By Kelly Jasper, Daily News-Record

Candlelight prayer walkers form a circle in front of the Eastern Mennonite University Campus Center Greeting Hall Sunday evening as part of the school’s commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Photo by Michael Reilly

It’s time. Melody Pannell’s hands collapse into her lap. They’ve been lifted in praise since The Yancey Brothers started singing more than an hour before.

With a candle clutched close to her heart, she calls others to follow.

They do, marching from the warmth of the campus center, where they had just clapped, stomped and sang to the Yancy’s.

The set on Sunday night runs 40 minutes longer than organizers at Eastern Mennonite University anticipated. No matter, says Jered Lyons, a junior.

"We came to sing praise," says Lyons, a 21-year-old Maryland native. "We came for fellowship."

And that’s what they found.

They march, about 100 in all, to the Thomas Plaza, a brick square lit only by candlelight in the dark, navy night.

Martin Luther King Jr. would have liked it, Lyons says.

The civil rights leader espoused peace, respect, equality and love — which is why the nation celebrates his birthday today, explains Joseph Macon, a junior. King was assassinated 38 years ago.

Macon says he can’t imagine life without King.

"It’s a very important holiday," Macon says. "If it wasn’t for God sending him, we would still be living like they did 40 or 50 years ago. I don’t want to live like that on the back of the bus."

‘Support For The People’

On Sunday, EMU’s tribute to the civil rights leader begins with a concert, transitions to a march, then ends with prayer.

The Yancey Brothers, a seven-member praise band from Delaware, leads the group in song. The smooth beats — gospel meets Motown — brings the crowd to its feet inside an auditorium of the campus center.

Music rings out outside, too.

In a circle on the plaza, the crowd sings together — mostly spiritual hymns, as King would have, says Pannell, EMU’s director of multicultural services.

"Spiritual songs encouraged the civil rights movement," Pannell says. "It was an avenue for encouragement and support for the people."

Brian Martin Burkholder, director of campus ministry, leads the group in prayer.

He invites others to pray, and they do, asking for guidance, wisdom, respectful dialogue and integrity. They pray for a common voice on campus and in the community.

The values and ethics and faith of Martin Luther King are the very essence of EMU, Burkholder says. He prays that they live that way every day, not just today.

"We thank the vision of Martin Luther King," Burkholder says. "We join ours."

He ends with "Amen" to shouts of the same.

— article by: Kelly Jasper, Daily News-Record; posted January 15, 2007