Vassar MLK Day Gathering Uplifts and Inspires
The year’s first winter storm was no match for the Vassar community’s spirit, which warmed a frigid day during the College’s January 20 Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. The event was moved from the Villard Room to Zoom after snow blanketed the campus overnight. Around 115 people gathered online to honor the late civil rights leader and take inspiration from his words on what also happened to be Inauguration Day in a painfully divided America.
The celebration was opened by Wesley Dixon, Deputy to the President and Secretary to the Vassar Board of Trustees, who noted that “the bond that we've created, both at Vassar and externally, transcends geography … so I’m happy that we are able to demonstrate that today.”
Watch the complete celebration.
Wendy Maragh Taylor, Associate Dean of the College for Student Growth and Engagement, invoked the late poet Nikki Giovanni’s call to keep in mind that “there is always something to do” to care for one another. “Indeed, I don’t think it’s too much to ask us to be involved in the world, in our communities, in meaningful ways,” said Maragh Taylor, noting that Giovanni’s words coincide with King’s belief that “the time is always right to do what is right.” Maragh Taylor encouraged those gathered to “look for the opportunities that are always here, not just today, to do what is right—for equity, for well-being, and all of that necessarily brings a level of care in our communities.”
President Elizabeth H. Bradley quoted from the last speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave on April 3, 1968—the very day before he was assassinated by a white supremacist. “In that speech, he told the gathered crowd that if God had let him choose any era to live in, he would choose the one that he had landed in,” Bradley said. “He admitted that this was pretty hard to fathom … because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. But he also said it’s only when it's dark enough that one can see the stars.”
Laura Washington ’88, President and CEO of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, spoke about the work of her organization, which helps individuals and organizations establish and administer charitable funds that address community needs. “I’ve seen how deeply connected we are when we come together,” Washington said. “We build bridges, we solve problems, and today is a perfect example of what that looks like in practice. We’re here to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy, but also to look around and remind ourselves of the work still to be done… So let’s keep working together, listening to one another and building a future rooted in unity and love.”
The group was then riveted by two students: Sara Iglesias ’27, who performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing”—known as the Black national anthem—and Kingston High School student Makayla Leon, a gifted storyteller who described her journey to come out to her family as a queer, Black person—deftly providing a window into the ways people are forced apart even when they know in their hearts they belong together. Leon was introduced by Dara Lurie ’83, Co-Director of Black Stories Matter of the TMI Project in Kingston.
Closing remarks were offered by Reverend Sam Speers, Associate Dean for Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices, who noted that "In this moment that seems to valorize strong-man politics, King and the collective movement that made him show us another way of being strong.” He then recited some of King’s prayers, including one that asks God—known to different people by different names—“that we will be able to establish here a kingdom of understanding, where men and women will live together as brothers and sisters and respect the dignity and worth of every human being.”