Ball State kicks off Unity Week with breakfast in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
It was a bitterly cold Monday morning in January when several Muncie community members and students bundled up, braved a public safety advisory, negative temperatures and an Indiana windchill of -10, and gathered together for an honorary breakfast in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, warmed by his passionate efforts for unity and equality.
The breakfast took place inside Cardinal Hall A on MLK Day, Jan. 15, to kick off Unity Week, a week-long series of events put on by Ball State University that “aims to challenge perspectives on matters of diversity, inclusivity, and solidarity in an evolving social climate. Unity Week 2024 marks the 44th annual Unity Week celebration at Ball State University,” according to the Multicultural website.
Mayor Don Ridenour was in attendance to proclaim the date as “Unity: In Times Like These” Day in Muncie, Indiana—the theme of the breakfast.
As people finished up their pungent cantaloupe and crisp bacon slices, spiritual tunes and saxophone riffs filled the room. The music was thoughtfully chosen by George Wolfe, a retired Ball State School of Music Professor, who was playing alongside Ball State Associate Professor of Music Dr. Robert Willey, and graduate assistant Michael Santos. The trio played two pieces over breakfast, “Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child” and “Now is the Time.” Both titles were selected with the intention to highlight musical activism.
“Now is the Time,” in particular, is a piece that was selected by Wolfe specifically because, “Dr. Martin Luther King uses the phrase, ‘Now is the time,’ five times in his ‘I Have a Dream speech.”
The arrangement by saxophonist Charlie Parker is that of jazz.
“Dr. King appreciated the significant role that [jazz] played in the African American Freedom movement,” said Wolfe.
The ceremony’s keynote speaker, Dr. John Anderson, a Ball State Alum (MA ‘16, EDD ‘21) who studied sociology during his time at the university.
Referring to the breakfast’s theme, “Unity: In Times Like These,” Anderson cited from the Greek Lexicon when he said that there are two types of timing: cronous, like that of clockwork and chronological order, and kairos, which is in rooted integrity and surrounds concepts like knowing what to do and when to do it.
Anderson talked extensively of his “transplant” from the San Francisco Bay area in the Fillmore District Neighborhood, which he called, “the functional equivalent of Harlem, NY” and Daly City, CA, where he spent the first 30 years of his life, to Muncie, Indiana during the housing crisis and recession of the early 2000s. In 2007, Anderson and his wife closed out both of their retirement funds and moved to Muncie after losing his childhood home in foreclosure.
“One of the things that I’ve realized is that Muncie, Indiana has a magnetic pull—a way of drawing people from all over the globe,” said Anderson. “Muncie Indiana is in a time of great transition.”
Transition promotes change.
Anderson concluded, “Transition offers the opportunity for redefinition, reimagining, redefining. It’s important that we seize this opportunity for everyone to have an opportunity to add to the definition of this locality.”
There were a handful of high school seniors present at the breakfast from surrounding schools in Muncie and Delaware County. Students in attendance were recognized as youth leaders by the Dr. MLK Celebration Planning Committee due to their outstanding academic achievements.
Anderson’s message to them and other children was “to dream without limitation. Yet, he cautioned, “It’s one thing to dream, but it’s another thing to mobilize and take action toward those dreams.”
Throughout the week, a variety of unity festivities are scheduled to commence. Events are open to all students.
Contact Katherine Hill with comments at katherine.hill@bsu.edu .
