KALAMAZOO (WKZO AM/FM) — They held a remembrance for Martin Luther King Jr. on the 50th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis at a downtown Kalamazoo Church Wednesday evening.
Several pastors, local officials and young African-Americans spoke about his lasting legacy and his continued impact on race-relations in the nation and how his movement and his philosophy is now more important than ever, faced with the recent rise in racial tension.
Several speakers said that King will live on as long as we remember what he stood for and struggle for what he wanted to achieve, and that struggle continues.
Martin Luther King Jr. only made one appearance in West Michigan when he was alive.
He was invited to speak on the WMU campus on Dec. 18th 1963. During that speech he responded to a word that critics sometimes used to describe him, “that he was maladjusted”. And like he often did he turned it into something positive.
The speech came just weeks after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and six months after the “I have a Dream” speech propelled him into the national consciousness.
He was at the peak of his influence, five years away from his assassination, which was the event marked this week.
About two thousand attended the speech at Reid Fieldhouse.
