Faith, Service, Education Mark MLK Celebration

The work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was more than one quote, one moment or one movement.

A fierce champion of civil rights and human rights, King was a preacher and a political leader who addressed racial, economic and social injustices alongside a broad coalition of people from different backgrounds.

On Monday, Rockhurst University celebrated the King’s legacy with a day of events that highlighted King’s wide-ranging message and gift for reaching across boundaries.

To begin the afternoon, the University hosted an interfaith prayer service that featured speakers from different faith communities around Kansas City — from Moses Brings Plenty, a Lakota from the Kansas City Indian Center, to members of the Islamic School of Greater Kansas City — speaking from their faiths as University students shared quotes from King that complemented those messages. The choir from St. Therese of the Little Flower opened the service with “Let There Be Peace on Earth” and closed with civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.”

Anthony Calcagno, a junior psychology major, said seeing people from so many different traditions come together struck him.

“Peace, love, compassion and caring are all at the center of the faiths,” he said. “I loved the desire to come out and educate others on the different faiths that are present in the world, which is something that I think is encompassed in Dr. King's message.”

Following the service, more than 150 students, faculty and staff volunteers fanned out to a dozen sites around the city for service projects. Students sat down to watch and discuss a documentary about the civil rights movement with area youth at the Linwood YMCA, made cookies and visited with cancer patients at Hope Lodge, picked up debris along Kansas City’s Brush Creek, and served hot chocolate to travelers at public bus stops at 75th and 39th streets along Troost Avenue, among other projects.

Calcagno, who led a group of students, said being able to spend the day serving others, even with something as simple as a cup of hot chocolate, was a great educational experience, as well as a social one.

“As a group, we were able to communicate happiness and joy and with smiling faces, our hot chocolate give away became increasingly popular,” he said.

Speaker Charles H. Alphin Jr., executive director of the Building Life Foundations Nonviolence Center in O’Fallon, Missouri, capped off the celebration in the auditorium of Arrupe Hall, talking about King’s vision of nonviolent resistance and how that tradition continues today.