MLK Has Connection to K-State
KSAL Staff / Associated Press - Sun 07:58 PM 01/20/2013
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at Ahearn Field House at K-State on Jan. 19, 1968.
Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech at Kansas State University just months before his death in 1968.
King spoke to more than 7,000 people at Ahearn Field House on Jan. 19, 1968.
Although King had delivered a version of the speech before, he often adjusted to respond to his audience and address current events. Those off-message moments are often what historians find most interesting, and King’s appearance at Kansas State didn’t disappoint. King used the speech to respond to the State of the Union address that President Lyndon Johnson had delivered two days earlier.
”He talked about the highways and the beautiful cars flowing on those highways,” King told his audience. “He talked about the 70 million television sets. And then he wanted to know why there is so much restlessness. I would like to answer the president by saying that there is restlessness in this society because we have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live.”
The speech was titled “The Future of Integration.”
When King was killed shortly after the Manhattan speech, he carried a bit of Kansas State University with him. A paper in his coat pocket contained the names of four men tied to the speech the civil rights icon gave at K-State less than three months earlier. It also contained the name of then university president James McCain.
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The_Law
Monday 21 January 2013 10:05 Report this comment
In 1963, Robert Kennedy gave J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI the authority to tap King's phone to determine his Communist activities. On March 18, 1968, Kennedy spoke at K-State to announce for the first time that he was running for President (KU claims this but he said it at K-State that morning). After increasing the presence of troops in Vietnam and seeing no way out, President Johnson decided not to run, making way for Nixon to get back in politics. On Friday, December 13, 1968, Nichols Gym went up in flames. 1968 was a very trying time for the country. In 1980, the Black Student Union unveiled the "We Are the Dream" mural on the 4th floor of Hale Library.
The_Law
Monday 21 January 2013 10:14 Report this comment
In 2007, K-State dedicated a bust of King next to Ahearn Fieldhouse to celebrate his achievements and his 1968 visit.
The_Law
Monday 21 January 2013 10:22 Report this comment
It was thought that the recording of King's speech at Ahearn was lost in the Nichols fire, but a recording was found last year.
The_Law
Monday 21 January 2013 10:25 Report this comment
The other names on that list? James McCain Homer Floyd - former executive director of the Kansas Human Relations Commission George Haley - former State Senator William Boyer - former political science professor
The_Law
Monday 21 January 2013 10:31 Report this comment
King was a speaker at K-State through the Convocation Series and not the Landon Lecture series which was started in 1966 with its first speaker Alf Landon. Other Convocation Series speakers include: d@#$ Gregory, Gordon Parks and Charles Evers (older brother of Medgar). The series ran from 1963-1997.