Andrew Crighton

News Editor

Martin Luther King Jr. Day was honored and remembered by ISU students and community members this year, with an honorary march and speaking program that followed afterwards.

The march began at 1 p.m. on Monday, January 16, and was led by the ISU Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and an honor guard of various students. The honor guard carried flags from all branches of the military including the Merchant Marines and other groups such as the LGBTQ, African American, Native American and Hispanic American flags.

Individuals followed behind the two guards caring signs expressing concerns for equal rights of minorities, genders and calling for diversity and support for these groups.

Organizers led the group in chants such as “ Martin Luther King, I have a dream” and “Idaho State, too great to hate.”

The march began at Holt Arena and traveled through campus to the L.E. and Thelma E. Stephen’s Performing Arts Center. Immediately following the march, a memorial speaking event was held inside the SPAC.

Organized by students, the event was hosted by the Mistresses of Ceremony Rachel Brinkley and Daisy Kener. Brinkley grew up in Kuna Idaho, and Kener was born in Kenya, traveled to the United States and graduated from Highland
High School.

After the national anthem was presented by an ISU student, an excerpt the film “The Great Debaters” was shown. Micah Breland read from King’s famous piece, “I Have a Dream.”

“We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation” he read.

ASISU President Makayla Muir spoke as well. Muir discussed the role that King and played in inspiring those to change as well as what people could learn from his speeches.

Muir said that to her, “I have a Dream” is not only inspiring for it’s of hope but that, “[it] reminds us that in order to make a change for the better, there has to be people willing to dream for that change.”

Throughout the event, students in the audience presented quotes from inspirational human rights activists. Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Chief Sitting Bull, Malcolm X and John F. Kennedy were among those quoted during the evening. The keynote address was presented by Taylor Ramos, an ISU student who works at the Diversity Center.

Ramos told the story of how she was raised in a Hispanic family in small town Idaho. Ramos is studying to either become a Physician Assistant or continue on to medical school. She described the difference in treatment she witnessed in people who were amazed and impressed with her decision to study in such a competitive field; but scoffed at other women who said they wanted to be a stay-at-home mom or school teacher.

“One thing I learned by the time I graduated high school: the world holds impossible standards for women, people of color and especially women of color,” Ramos said.

Ramos then discussed how she perceived racism to be illogical and without base.

The difference in skin color is a product of how far an individual’s ancestors migrated away from the equator, causing there to be more or less melanin produced in the skin.

“When a person decides that they are better than another, we should no longer give them the falsity of calling them racist,” said Ramos. “But rather, show them the truth that they are denying another human, who is the same as them, the basic
rights of a human being.”