A small group of IU community members gathered Monday at Franklin Hall to observe Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 95 th birthday.
Assistant Professor Maria Hamilton Abegunde facilitated the event Walking the Labyrinth for Peace, which focused on a maze of concentric circles on the floor of President’s Hall.
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Associate Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Monica Johnson said that the event’s focus was self-reflection, and participants would navigate their own mind as they traversed the canvas labyrinth.
“I think it's all too easy for us to find a quick soundbite or a quote from Martin Luther King that we can take out of context to try to apply to whatever we're thinking, but it's great to see a full work to think through what he was saying in 1963,” Johnson said.
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Participants read aloud from King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, which the incarcerated civil rights leader wrote over 60 years ago.
Johnson encouraged people to observe the holiday by reading some of King’s extensive writings and reflecting closely on the pertinence of his ideas today.
