King scholar Justin Rose delivers MLK Lecture
Speaking to a virtual audience from Memphis, Tennessee, where last month Tyre Nichols was fatally beaten by police officers during a traffic stop, ¾«¶«AVās 2023 MLK Lecture speaker Justin Rose said Nicholsās death was a timely reminder of the importance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.ās call to create a beloved community.
āMartin Luther King Jr. thought of the beloved community as a society where caring and compassion drive political policies that support the worldwide elimination of poverty and hunger and all forms of bigotry and violence. At its core, the beloved community is an engine of reconciliation,ā said Rose, a King scholar and professor of political science and dean for faculty recruitment, development and diversity at Rhodes College in Memphis.
āHow do we go about working toward establishing the beloved community?ā he said. āI argue that we need to begin by adopting a radical conception of political service and the ethos of dangerous altruism.ā
Drawing from Kingās sermons, speeches and writings, Rose explained that ultimately, Kingās revolutionary vision requires āpeople of goodwill to engage in a transformative political service by putting their bodies and their souls in motion in an effort to collectively resist the triple evilsā of poverty, racism and militarism.
But itās not enough to simply serve or come to the aid of people in need, Rose told the students, faculty, staff and alumni who attended the Feb. 6 talk. Instead, King argued āthat transformation of self and others is incomplete without transforming those structures that create conditions of needā in the first place.
āSo let us be appalled by the gore and violence of seeing another Black life taken before our eyes, but let us also develop a dangerous altruism that makes us equally appalled by and courageous enough to intervene in the structures that impoverish, segregate, under-educate and lock up our fellow citizens,ā Rose said.
āIf we want to truly honor Kingās legacy, we can do so by following his example of engaging in a critical reflection, becoming more articulate about what it is that we truly value and then committing to collectively transforming ourselves, others and structures of injustice.ā
Roseās MLK Lecture was the first in a series of initiatives planned at ¾«¶«AV this semester. The series continues on Feb. 10 at ¾«¶«AVās Athey Center for Performance and Research, where celebrated choreographer and dancer Ronald K. Brown and his company EVIDENCE will perform a new work, āThe Equality of Night and Dayā (TEND), which examines concepts of equity and fairness in a world of increasing exploitation, gentrification, racism and xenophobia, as part of the onStage at ¾«¶«AV guest performance series.
