--By Courtney Day T-G Staff Writer Published: January 20, 2015
Photo Credit: Tom E. Puskar
Just to think about Martin Luther King Jr. is a privilege, the Rev. Dr. C.T. Vivian said.
Vivian described King as "the prophet of our age," a man who made human rights an issue for a
nation that didn't know it was sick with the cancer of racism.
"He took the Bible on one hand and he took the constitution on the other hand and said, 'Who are you, America? What do you really believe, America? What kind of persons are you going to be? What kind of children are you going to raise? What are you, America?' " Vivian said.
And it was because of this questioning, Vivian said, that "the basis of all human rights today, in this country in particular, is the result of his (King's) movement."
Vivian worked with King during the civil rights movement as national director of affiliates and strategist for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was active in movements in Birmingham, Alabama; Selma, Alabama; Nashville, Tennessee; Danville, Virginia; St. Augustine,
Florida; Chicago; and Peoria, Illinois.
In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Vivian the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Vivian was the featured speaker at Ashland University's Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration Monday. The event, which was sponsored by the Ashland Center for Nonviolence, attracted a crowd of about 600 people from the campus and community.
"We were blown away by the turnout," Ashland Center for Nonviolence executive director Craig Hovey said, adding that the center is pleased to bring the campus and community together in observance of the holiday.
Hovey said he was struck by the fact that Monday's event was "probably the last opportunity many of us will have to see someone like this or hear something like this."
At a dinner prior to the public event as well as during his lecture, Vivian shared stories about learning to practice nonviolence, whether in the schoolyard as a boy or in jail during the civil rights movement when a guard pointed a gun to his head.
For Vivian, nonviolence is based in Christian faith, in love for others and in the knowledge that no other method can bring about the desired results.
"The ultimate weakness in violence is that it keeps spiraling down," he said.
King's legacy, Vivian said, was that he brought the nation a method to solve social problems without violence.
Vivian emphasized there is work still to be done toward realizing King's dream, citing unequal educational opportunity and white privilege as issues minorities still face.
Part of the problem, he said, is that white people can hardly tell another white person that they are racist without laughing.
"We have got to end racism. That's all there is to it," he said. "This is not a black problem. We just suffer from the fact that it's a white problem. ... We suffer from your sickness and those of you who are not (sick) need to be telling other white people that we've got to end this."
Vivian said the movement has come a long way, citing the election of a black president as a sign of progress. He said he also was encouraged by the number of white people among the protesters against police shootings of black people.
When asked by AU Religion Department faculty member Peter Slade to share his thoughts about the 2014 movie "Selma" as someone who was there for the events of the film, Vivian said, "You're going to love the film, but you're going to be disappointed."
Vivian said that while the details of the movie are not all historically accurate, watching the movie is a good way for people to get the feeling of the civil rights movement and to understand what it means to be hated, to be put down and beaten and to do nothing.
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