More than 40 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. took the country one step closer to equality in America.

Thursday evening, a group of about 50 students took a few thousand steps of their own, marching down Lucinda Avenue in remembrance and tribute.

March is 15th annual event

“If we could, we should do it everyday,” said Rashida Olaywola, a junior corporate communication major.

Olaywola said the march, an annual event started 15 years ago, offered her a chance to “relive the dream.”

Olaywola, who also helped carry a banner for Zeta Phi Beta in the march, smiled as she marched forward for the same reason that King did – freedom.

The march, led by the NIU chapter of the NAACP, gathered passing students as it traveled, attracting students from all races and backgrounds to join them on the way to the Holmes Student Center.

“If it wasn’t for the people who laid down their lives we wouldn’t be able to be here today,” said Jenese Miller, a senior journalism major.

Miller stressed the importance of the march to students passing by, inviting them to join in.

The march concluded at the Holmes Student Center Carl Sandburg Auditorium, where participants viewed a segment of the PBS documentary “Citizen King,” featuring footage of the 1966 riots in the Cicero area, footage from a speech on non-violence King gave to Chicago gang members and additional commentary from historians discussing King’s constant and difficult struggle for equal rights.

Mood? ‘A celebration of life’

Afterward, NIU’s NAACP President Tamika Romayne told participants to smile, calling the event a “celebration of a life,” rather than a time to be sad.

Romayne yielded the stage to poetry readings, songs, a dance performance and guest speaker Berve M. Power, managing attorney for Chicago law firm Power & Dixon, P.C.

“We do Dr. King a disservice,” Power said, “if all we can remember about him is that he had a dream.

He had a function: to fight against the injustices of his day.”

Goal: Build off King’s victory

Power described the many ways King’s struggle has changed our society, and stressed a need to not only benefit from King’s victories, but to build off them.

Power later spoke about voting rights and the Iraq War, and said voting rights for blacks are not yet a permanent federal provision.

Power spoke about poverty, and how important it is to alleviate poverty to prevent further injustices between the rich and the poor, and said these things are what King would have fought for if he was alive today.