It is difficult to believe that nearly 20 years have passed since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was felled by an assassin’s bullet.

As we pause this week to honor Dr. King with a national holiday, let us remember his “climb to the mountaintop” and his dream of brotherhood and unity. Too often, at Northern and throughout America, we still hear the voices of those who promote separatism and racist division. Let us always make it clear that we will do all in our power to reject such voices and know that as long as we separate ourselves according to skin color, ethnic background, religious creed, gender or other irrelevancies, we, as a society and as individuals, are the poorer for it.

Early in February, NIU will be the site of a conference for higher education administrators from all over the Midwest who will gather here to discuss the sporadic resurgence of racism and racial discrimination at American campuses, including our own. NIU has the potential to be a regional and even a national leader in promoting “unity through diversity,” which has been established as a university theme this year. And what theme could be more appropriate, in this land that for so long has prided itself as being the world’s “melting pot,” dedicated to a national motto, “out of many, one”? Moreover, this year’s theme must become our permanent goal.

It is not enough to merely proclaim our individual support for unity. We also must clearly condemn all acts of hatred, disrespect or incivility, no matter how minor. We must not condone so-called innocuous statements because any joke or slur is an affront to individual dignity.

Each of us, as our daily paths take us across Northern’s central open meeting space, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commons, would do well to consider the meaning of Dr. King’s life, and the tragedy of his death, as we rededicate ourselves to the dream he articulated so well and so effectively for all peoples of the world.

John LaTourette,

NIU President