Collegian T he Cameron University
www.aggiecentral.com
Monday, January 29, 2018
Volume 98 Issue 1
MLK Day celebration by Ph o t o s
Stacie Larsen
decided to give me a quarter for every speech that I would do--something that News Editor continued until two years ago.” At 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 16, Langston Smith said that he believes in University President Dr. Kent J. speaking from the heart, but also in Smith, Jr. spoke at Cameron Campus speaking the truth that he knows. Ministry’s 34th annual Dr. Martin “Yep, it’s going to be that kind of Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration speech,” he said. “I’m going to say what I Banquet in the Aggie Rec Center. really feel.” Before focusing his speech on “The He talked to the audience about a Power of Education: Igniting Passion few factors that he believes prevent For a Greater Tomorrow,” Smith young people from getting an education, dedicated his following remarks to including poverty, incarceration, and his late mother, who was a retired death. educator, guidance counselor and “Every five-seconds of the day, a child French teacher. drops out of school,” he said. “Every “My mother was also the one that 55-seconds of the day, a child without encouraged me to start speaking a high-school diploma gives birth to publicly,” he said. “In fact, the first another child. Every seventh-minute speech I gave was when I was in of the day, a child is arrested on a drug the seventh-grade. My mother offense.
S t ac ie
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“Every 14 hours, a child ages five or younger is murdered. Every day, 1.3 million latchkey kids are left home to fend for themselves after school because they have a parent or grand-parent working a job or extra job to make ends meet. Every day, 135,000 children bring guns to school to protect themselves. Everyday three children die of injuries inflicted by an abusive parent.” Smith said he sees King as much more than just an icon: he is a hero who pursued the universal dream with the hope of people achieving greatness throughout the world through messages of hope, love, peace, social and economic justice and equality with respect for themselves and others. “I certainly believe that we need to talk a lot more about Dr. King’s dream
of social and economic justice and true equality for all,” he said. “But do we really have justice and equality for all? Is the least among us the greatest of us?” Smith said he believes that if asked today, King would say his dream has been deferred. “If Martin Luther King Jr. were here today,” he said, “he would see that more than 25% of African Americans still live in poverty. He would see that African Americans comprise only 11% of the workforce. He would see that only 18% percent of African Americans over the age of 25 are college graduates.”
See MLK Page 2
Featuring: Q&A with SEE PAGE 2 Dr. Kent J. Smith, Jr.
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Aggie basketball falls 59-57
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