Administrators urged students to carry on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. through active citizenship during a series of speeches yesterday, setting the stage for an insistent keynote address from sociologist Melvin Oliver on the difficulties currently facing black Americans.
"I think part of Dr. King's legacy is that he asked us to ask tough questions and challenge the way things are with conceptions of the way things should be," said Oliver, a dean of social sciences and professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "Today, King would be disappointed in us if we didn't reflect on some of the injustices in the world ... what I would call the upsetting economic status of African-Americans."
Oliver spoke at Tufts' Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Celebration, ushering in Black History Month. The co-author of "Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality," he used a PowerPoint presentation during his talk to illustrate the social, political and economic factors that have led to the increasing financial gap between black and white Americans.
"In 1995, we showed that for every dollar of median net worth that whites controlled, blacks controlled only eight cents," he said. "Now, it's a continuing disparity of about 10 cents on the dollar. The wealth gap has increased from $60,980 to $82,663 ... These are things King would have wanted us to address."
He attributed this disparity to a lack of African-American presence in the business world and to issues that can be traced back to the period of slavery.
"I call this the economic detour," he said. "Every [racial] group comes to America, and the first thing they do is set up businesses. African-Americans did not. When you look at wealth, you see the ways in which they [continue to] get sedimented to the bottom of the racial hierarchy."
He explained that when blacks came to the United States as slaves, they often worked away from the plantations in urban areas to generate extra wealth, which they ultimately used to try to buy their freedom.
"[Slaves] did with their savings what white people got for free: they bought their freedom," he said.
Before Oliver spoke, a number of administrators offered reflections on the upcoming 40th anniversary of King's assassination. President Lawrence Bacow, Provost Jamshed Bharucha and Executive Director for the Office for Institutional Diversity Lisa Coleman all delivered speeches.
Bacow urged audience members to rededicate themselves to King's teachings.
"King challenged us to better ourselves as a nation and a community," he said. "Let us not forget his commitment to the poor, the sick, those who labor without adequate recognition and those to whom freedom and equality are still a promise and not a reality."
He referred to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), saying that while his presidential campaign represents a positive shift in American racial ideology, there remains much progress to be made.
"We sit here today in the midst of a presidential campaign in which one of the leading candidates is the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya," he said. "[But] the progress that has been made does not mean we should lessen our commitment to [King's] dream."
Coleman urged the audience to consider social problems in America today, including racial profiling, crime and the urban crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina.
"Who cannot be horrified by the level of poverty that exists in the wealthiest nation in the world?" she asked. "Where is the commitment to continuing Dr. King's legacy? Let us reduce the violence, let us do it at Tufts and beyond, let us embrace the change of tomorrow."
Tufts students also took part in yesterday's event. The Gospel Choir performed, asking for audience participation as they sang "Lift Every Voice and Sing." Also, three students read poetry from Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes and King himself.
