VU King Day speaker: ‘Pay it forward’
By Amy Lavalley Post-Tribune correspondent January 16, 2012 2:30PM
Tim King, Founder, President & CEO of Urban Prep Academies takes a photo of the crowd, for his mother, before starting his keynote address at the 2012 Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation at the Valparaiso University Chapel on Monday January 16, 2012 in Valparaiso, IN. | Jim Karczewski~for Sun-Times Media
Updated: February 18, 2012 8:12AM
VALPARAISO — The legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is what people do for future generations, for the people they don’t know and never will.
That was part of the message Tim King, founder, president and CEO of Urban Prep Academies, shared Monday during a Valparaiso University convocation honoring the late civil rights activist, held in the Chapel of the Resurrection. Urban Prep is a not-for-profit organization operating a string of public college prep boys schools in Chicago.
The speech, which King gave to a full house, was part of a week of events honoring the Rev. King, the campus’s 23th annual celebration of his life.
In 1955, the Rev. King led a 381-day bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., King said, using a quote from the reverend that served as a frame for his speech: “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase — just take that first step in faith.”
The Rev. King didn’t know he was embarking on a boycott that would last more than a year when he began, nor did he know the impact it would have on civil rights, King said.
“All of us alive today have a great debt to Dr. King and other leaders of the past, and we all have a responsibility to pay it forward,” King said.
He noted that each time someone votes or rides a bus, they are drinking from a well they didn’t dig, and getting shade from a tree they didn’t plant.
“This legacy is so expansive, we can’t even see what we owe to them,” King said.
“You’re sitting here because those before you worked hard so you could work at all. What we’re doing to continue that gift — that’s important,” he said.
As part of the program, three people or organizations received this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Award: NaTasha Henry, associate director of undergraduate admission; law professor Ivan Bodensteiner; and the Black Law Student Association.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment