The N*W*C Race Show tack­led tough soci­etal issues at Williams Auditorium last Thursday as part of the MLK Celebration week. Photo By: Kate Dupon | Photographer

The events from last week’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Celebration were received favor­ably by a respon­sive Ferris community.

This year’s theme was “The Jim Crow Era: Now and Then.”

Michael Wade, Assistant Director of the Office of Multicultural Student Services (OMSS), said the entire week was a suc­cess, in his opin­ion. He said every year the goal of the MLK Celebration is to offer as many oppor­tu­ni­ties for learn­ing and inter­ac­tion as pos­si­ble for stu­dents and the com­mu­nity together.

“We wanted to offer oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to get engaged and learn more about Dr. King and I believe we did get that this year,” said Wade.

Since its incep­tion, Ferris’ MLK Celebration has been grow­ing and expand­ing every year. One way that the OMSS helped do this was to extend the events for a full week start­ing about five years ago.

The fes­tiv­i­ties kicked off with the annual MLK Freedom March, which took place on Monday, a big change accord­ing to Wade. This year over 200 stu­dents, fac­ulty, admin­is­tra­tors, and com­mu­nity mem­bers par­tic­i­pated in the march from Merrill/Travis Hall to the Rankin Center.

“In the past, the march has always been on Sunday,” he said. “This year we moved it to Monday because we thought it might accom­mo­date more people.”

Another annual dis­play, the Tunnel of Oppression and Room of Reflection Exhibit fea­tured a mixed media dis­play of images of groups oppressed dur­ing the Jim Crow Era as well as some groups today that are strug­gling for equal rights and fight­ing oppression.

The Tunnel of Oppression is designed to chal­lenge per­spec­tives on numer­ous forms of oppres­sion includ­ing sex­ism, racism, homo­pho­bia, war and other forms of discrimination

Freshman Krista Testolin said, “I was impressed with the num­ber of facts that sur­prised me and the graphic images that I had not imagined.”

She did note, how­ever, that she was dis­ap­pointed that Native Americans were omit­ted from the tunnel.

The Room of Reflection offered ways that indi­vid­u­als can get involved in spread­ing aware­ness and tak­ing action against oppres­sion today.

A new fea­ture to the lineup of events this year was the N*W*C Race Show.

The show tells the real-life expe­ri­ences of three young men from dif­fer­ent eth­nic back­grounds. The show focused on how to decon­struct the notion of race in America and con­veyed the mes­sage that there is only one race: the human race.

The show uti­lized drama, hip-hop, slam poetry, and stand-up com­edy to address themes and issues related to racism, racial slan­der, eth­nic iden­tity, and media rep­re­sen­ta­tion and world per­cep­tion of racial stereotypes.

Ethan Pineda, a junior in the nurs­ing and biol­ogy pro­grams, thought the pre­sen­ta­tion was going to be a more seri­ous pro­gram and was sur­prised by the use of humor through­out the show.

“The way they were able to bring com­edy to [the show] while still get­ting their mes­sage across was really cool,” said Pineda.

The N*W*C Race Show, held in Williams Auditorium, brought in over 600 peo­ple, which Wade called “a def­i­nite success.”

Although the 2010 MLK Celebration has come to a close, Wade is already look­ing toward next year. He hopes that the event can become even more mean­ing­ful and con­tin­ues to present cam­pus with an oppor­tu­nity for learning.

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