In addition to the University closure on Monday, Jan. 17 in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a full week of events was hosted by the African American Cultural Center (AACC) and Student Leadership and Engagement (SLE) to further commemorate and teach students about Dr. King’s legacy.

The week’s events memorialized King’s legacy as an example for how we can be the change of today, encouraging students to think about and apply King’s ideals to impact current issues and foster community improvement.

“One special thing for this whole week celebration we really wanted to focus on was grassroots organizing as well as structural change,” said Andaiye Qaasim, assistant director for the AACC. “Sometimes when we think about diversity we’re only thinking about identities, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve changed the system … or created a new program. I think structural change is something that’s really critical in King’s legacy.”

Solidarity building was another topic at the forefront of last week’s events.

“Students want to know how they can support each other and what does it mean to kind of exist in community with one another,” Qaasim said. “We don’t have to be part of the same ethnic or racial background, or [even the] same community exactly to actually have empathy and care about what’s happening with someone else.”

The events began on Tuesday, Jan. 18 with the virtual MLK Teach in: On Breaking the Silence. Students were introduced to key concepts of critical race theory from angela gay-audre, the director of the AACC, before engaging in discussion via Jamboard posts. A firsthand perspective on the history of Black education was also presented by Irving Joyner, a professor at the North Carolina Central School of Law.

“The goal for that event was really to expose folks to critical theory … to really just kind of walk students and participants through key concepts,” Qaasim said. “Those are concepts that you can then use and hopefully make practical in your everyday life as you’re kind of … trying to figure out how we, you know, walk this walk.

Wednesday, Jan. 19 featured an interesting MLK Pop-up Exhibit in the main lobby of Talley Student Union spearheaded by Virginia Ferris and Victor Betts who work in the special collections department of NCSU Libraries.

“The concept of this exhibit was really to highlight significant moments of solidarity, student activism and organizing at [NC State],” Qaasim said.

Focusing on three time periods, the ‘60s-’70s, ‘80s-’90s and 2000s, the pop-up exhibit presented important historical events and facts related to activism and change on campus. Showcasing NC State-specific information such as Black enrollment numbers with reference to historical events of the time gave students a feel for how MLK’s activism has impacted the University through the years.

Thursday, Jan. 20 saw a number of events, beginning with Feed the Pack Food Pantry’s virtual presentation of An Examination of Food, Cooking, Commensality and the Civil Rights Movement. Food justice traditionally receives little attention within the Civil Rights Movement, but this event discussed issues of food insecurity and food activism from MLK to today.

“It was just this really interesting examination of, during the era of Martin Luther King Jr. … where food, where chefs, where restaurant owners were really a part of the Civil Rights Movement. [They were] feeding activists, being a part of it and breaking bread together,” said Brian Mathis, associate director of SLE which oversees Feed the Pack Food Pantry.

Feed the Pack also hosted a farmers market of sorts, featuring Black owned businesses and celebrating their contributions within the food space.

Later that night, SLE held a panel discussion, Policymaking While Black, as part of its ongoing Active Citizenry Series. Participants heard from a panel of five Black policymakers who serve in positions in the NC Senate, Wake County Board of Commissioners, Raleigh City Council, Wake County School Board of Education and Wake County Board of Elections. After the panel, students had the opportunity to further interact with panel members through small group discussions.

“That was a really intimate and interesting discussion of our panelists sharing their experiences of influencing and creating policy for our community, but while doing so in spaces that are predominantly white and male,” Mathis said. “It was a really great turnout and really dynamic discussion, so I think a lot of our students got a lot out of that experience.”

Happening in tandem on Thursday night was a virtual talk about The vMLK Project: Embodiment, Affect and World Building. The vMLK Project is an ongoing effort at NC State providing users with an immersive experience of MLK’s “A Creative Protest,” later known as the “Fill up the Jails” speech. Given at the White Rock Baptist Church in Durham just days after the Greensboro sit-ins, this speech has rooted itself in NC History, yet no known recordings exist.

“In its fullness, [the event] takes over the whole Hunt Library and all of the video walls and our immersive spaces,” said Hannah Rainey, associate head for research engagement at NC State Libraries.

However, because of COVID-19 concerns, the event was changed to a virtual talk about the project, its inception and future goals.

“At the peak of the attendance I think we had 119 participants in total, which I think is very successful,” Rainey said. “It speaks to sort of the relevancy and the timing of the topics that people are interested in [and], you know, commemorating the life of Dr. King in some way.”

To close out the week’s events, the AACC facilitated a virtual Fireside Chat on Friday, Jan. 21 where participants listened to a more informal, intimate conversation about Dr. King’s legacy and where it stands today. Guest speakers included Frederick Engram from the University of Texas at Arlington, Akinyele Omowale Umoja from Georgia State University, and Niki Franco who is a multidisciplinary cultural worker, creative artist, and abolitionist. NC State’s very own Stephen Ferguson II, associate professor of philosophy and Africana studies, moderated the discussion.

“Each of these folks were, in a sense, scholars and activists so they engage very, very deeply in scholarship in academia,” Qaasim said. “But they also [understand] this kind of applied practice, making [topics] applicable and knowing that structural change for actual things in our lives has to happen on the ground.”

Between the three speakers, multiple generations and backgrounds were present, facilitating a broad conversation on topics of race, poverty, politics and popular culture.

“You had folks who represent Gen X, who represent millennials and who represent baby boomers,” Qaasim said. “It was a very enriching conversation just bringing together these different generations, really looking at the legacy that we all are hoping to build on, but also the things that we still need to kind of work on today.”

Unfortunately, the much anticipated March Like Martin event, in which students peacefully but powerfully march through campus, was canceled on Friday due to inclement weather. It has been rescheduled for the end of February.

Even in the wake of COVID-19 concerns and weather cancellations, the legacy of King was celebrated throughout the week with events that have educated students about race, critical theory, structural change, food insecurity and solidarity, and given them the tools to foster change long after the week is over.