A day of service: Union honors memory of MLK

The commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has always been an important memorial for our country.  But when classes are in full swing and everyone is busy with their studies and independent lives, it is easy to forget why the institution of this day was put in place to begin with.

On Monday, an event was held at Union to commemorate an epic hero of our country in a way that we never have before. When speaking with Director of Multicultural Affairs Jason Benitez about the event, there was one word that he stressed over and over: unity.

He said that it is something that he wishes to achieve at Union by creating events like Monday’s and involving in the Schenectady community.

Sixty junior high school and high school students from Schenectady came to campus to participate in an event similar to Big Brother, Big Sister. Union students volunteered to take the students around to their classes and attend a special luncheon.

There was also a special event held at the Nott Memorial from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. in which every participant was given an index card with a line from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  The students were videotaped speaking their lines, and the snippets are going to be composed into one continuous, flowing replication of the historical and monumental speech.

Meredith Fierro ‘13, who participated in the event at the Nott, said, “It was great to see all these different students and faculty from around campus delivering lines from this famous speech so powerfully.  I think the final product will be very moving.”

While several offices were behind the planning of the event, the Office of Multicultural Affairs took the lead. Benitez only started working at Union in October, but is already making sure steps towards community building at the school.

“The event was amazing because it reminds Union that there is a community outside the wrought iron fence that encloses this school.  But it also shows the Schenectady community that we are an embracing group of people,” said Benitez.

He anticipates that the video project will be a powerful asset for the Union community. “We will be able to use it for so many different projects in the future to show our diversity and to broadcast how welcoming we really are.”

Benitez went on to explain how he thinks that the event was significant because sitting around and watching TV is an extreme waste of time when such important things are going on in our world.  “Even though Union still has classes, many people just sit around and do nothing on their day off,” he said. “At the start of Obama’s presidency, he stressed that MLK Jr. Day should be treated as a day of service, not a day wasted.”

Service was definitely provided by the sixty Union students who volunteered to take students around, many of whom went on the recent Civil Rights mini-term.

The Civil Rights mini-term is a two and half week trip starting in Charleston, S. C. and ending in New Orleans.

Amanda Schlossberg ‘13 participated in the trip and provided insight into some of the amazing things she learned.

“The trip started off with some background information, where we learned about slavery in order to lay a foundation for societal construction of the black individual.  The rest of the trip focused on the civil rights movement and the accomplishments and obstacles that individuals in this movement faced.”

The students on the trip learned about civil rights activists and peacemakers, individuals who supported the philosophy of non-violence and were instrumental in the youth movement.

Certain famous individuals even spoke directly to the group, so the students got a firsthand recollection of extremely important events in history and the peace movement.

Union got a taste of this type of thinking as well on Tuesday when the Office of Multicultural Affairs sponsored “Exploring Concepts of Non-Violence, Peaceful Resistance and Civil Disobedience.”

The non-violent approach was instrumental to MLK during the Civil Rights Era, and bringing it to Union is extremely beneficial to the way we interact with each other.

Schlossberg said, “This mini-term was truly an educational and life changing experience.  The mini-term opened my eyes to a world that I had never explored before in both the past and the present.  The deadliest weapon against our generation is our own ignorance.”

This is exactly the sentiment that Benitez echoed in his explanation of his hopes for the event on Monday: “This is all about exposure, we want to bring the outside community in and enlighten everyone.”