The College's celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day started with Reverend James Crawford '58 praising King's doctrine of non-violent demonstration and ended with James Cone, a theologian, talking about the differences between King and Malcolm X.
Crawford, a pastor in Boston, Mass., kicked off the day's event by delivering the keynote address at the opening ceremonies in 105 Dartmouth Hall.
And Cone, the Charles Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary, gave the keynote address at an evening service in Rollins Chapel.
To a crowd of about 70 people, Crawford talked about King's central role in the civil rights movement and problems of prejudice that exist in today's society, including what he called the racially biased English language.
He summarized his admiration for King by saying, "What a figure he was, what a figure he is."
"King caused a dilemma to the mainstream of white society at the time, because while he was working against many people who were white and hated him, he prayed for his enemies," Crawford said.
"The bedrock of King's beliefs was his belief that all people were the children of God regardless of race, color, creed or culture," he said.
Speaking to about 50 people, Cone said King's dream of civil rights can never be realized without dealing with Malcolm X's "nightmare."
"Without confronting the nightmare Malcolm spoke of, we'll never achieve the community Martin dreamt of," Cone said.
Cone said the differences between King and Malcolm X have been exaggerated.
"Neither one can be fully understood or appreciated without at the same time giving serious consideration to the other," he said.
He said although King and Malcolm X chose different paths to fight for equality, they both had the common goal of gaining "recognition and respect for African Americans as human beings."
"The difference between Martin and Malcolm was due partly to a difference in geography," Cone said. "They spoke to different groups of people. King spoke to Southern, black Christians and Malcolm X spoke to Northern blacks that were alienated from Christianity."
Cone called King an inspiration to all blacks, giving them "the ability to believe in themselves as human beings."
The evening ceremony, which followed a candlelight vigil, included an invocation by Reverend Gwendolyn King, the College's Christian Chaplain and remarks by President of the Afro-American Society, Zola Mashariki '94 as well as President of the Student Assembly, Nicole Artzer '94.
Crawford questioned whether, almost 30 years after King's death, his famous dream is still with us.
"The American dream can be real if we can remove the disease of prejudice from our society for all people to be free," Crawford said.
Crawford spoke of the prevalence of European-centrism in many aspects of our culture, especially the English language itself.
"English tends to perpetuate racially marginalized terms," he said.
Crawford cited Roget's Thesaurus, which has more than 60 synonyms for blackness which have negative connotations, while there are more than 140 synonyms for white, almost all of which are positive.
"The speech was a very inspirational message about King's legacy, but I am somewhat skeptical about the merits of rewriting the English language just to change the connotations," Senior Class President Dan Garodnick said.
"I agreed with a lot of the speech, but I wasn't sure about the part about the language bias," Bill Kartalopoulos '97 said. "Many of those terms weren't made to be racist, just visual," he added.
