The Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, in partnership with the City of Boston, honored the legacy of Boston University alum Martin Luther King Jr. Saturday at the George Sherman Union Metcalf Hall.
This year’s celebration was centered around King’s 1962 sermon titled “A Knock at Midnight,” and featured addresses from HTC Director Nick Bates and BU President Melissa Gilliam, and a keynote conversation between bestselling author Cole Arthur Riley and School of Theology Professor Shively Smith.
One major difference with this year’s celebration, Bates said, was holding the event on a Saturday rather than on the Monday holiday.
“Typically, on the King holiday… students aren’t really around or present in numbers in ways that we hope,” Bates said. “We look at shifting to the Saturday as an opportunity for more students to be engaged.”
Gilliam, the University’s first Black and first female president, said her first time hosting the celebration was “wonderful.”
“It is such an honor to have both Dr. King and Dr. [Howard] Thurman rooted at Boston University,” Gilliam said. “I’ve hosted [and] been a part of many MLK Day celebrations, but this was particularly special.”
Gilliam also extended her gratitude to the City of Boston, which has long partnered with BU during its annual MLK Day celebrations.
“It’s just great to see this community come together,” Gilliam said. “It was also great to know that this is something that we’re doing with the city of Boston and that we’re sharing this great, great legacy with the city.”
In “A Knock at Midnight,” King uses “midnight” to represent societal challenges such as war and inequality, which he implores his congregation to overcome through self-reflection and prayer.
Smith said the theme, “The Darkness at Midnight,” and sermon were chosen for their social relevance.
“A lot of what [King] says in the sermon sounds like he’s detailing some of our contemporary issues, from the global wars, to concerns about poverty, to living cost,” said Smith, “It’s a theory [that] his 1962 sermon can be listened to in 2025, and you can’t really tell the difference between whether it’s 1962 or 2025.”
The celebration sought to highlight King’s less-mainstream works, Bates said.
“We’re always interested in informing people about other aspects, speeches and sermons of King that unpack other dimensions of him that people may not be familiar with,” he said.
Senior Bermina Chery was a student speaker at the event who recited a reading from King’s work. She said she hopes “we’re celebrating him beyond the general, overall narrative that is pushed about him.”
“He was radical for his time, and he’s radical for our time as well,” Chery said. “Considering the trajectory that we are going in politically, I would say that even today, he lives on to be radical, and we have to acknowledge that and celebrate him in all that he is.”
Amarais Towle, a graduate student at STH, said she attended the event to hear Riley and Smith speak.
“I thought it was a really good theme for the year, especially in January, after an inauguration,” Towle said.
Bates hinted at next year’s celebration theme in his closing remarks with a reading from “But If Not,” one of King’s final sermons delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church in November 1967. A musical arrangement from the Hamilton-Garrett Youth Choir closed the event.
Gilliam said she appreciated the theme of the celebration and the event as a whole.
“One of the main comments was about looking internally, and looking not at the darkness in the external world, but looking at your places where you don’t know yourself or where there’s darkness for you, and using that to learn and meet other people and build community,” Gilliam said. “I just thought that was a fantastic point.”
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