SLC Times

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to improving the educational access and opportunity given to every person, and at the University of Utah, we continue to strive toward those values. Martin Luther King Jr. Week (MLK Week) has become a platform for engaging students, faculty, trainees, staff and community members in critical conversations around race and contemporary civil rights issues in America. This year, MLK Week takes place from Jan. 14-20, and all are welcome to get involved and participate.

In the spring of 1963, as King was preparing to help lead organized protests in Birmingham, he was simultaneously finishing his work on “The Strength to Love,” his first collection of published sermons to appear with Beacon Press. King’s notion of love wasn’t the amorous western ideal; King’s love required strength—even defiance in the pursuit of justice and equity. King understood his notion of love would seem contradictory to many readers—especially those seeing images of peaceful protesters in Alabama attacked by police dogs and battered by water cannons. But he insisted, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

In honor of MLK Week, the U will host a series of events exploring the reverend’s complex ideas on the meaning of love, and together we’ll examine the strength needed to choose it when faced with hatred and division.

MLK Week 2023 is planned in partnership with various organizations across the U and is sponsored by Domo, Inc. and L3Harris.

Original source can be found here.