MLK Day Gathering Opens a New Year of Community Building
As sunshine sparkled over new snow on a morning bright as hope, a diverse cross-section of Vassar community members and local leaders assembled on campus to honor the strength and wisdom of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. The best way to do that, the speakers agreed, is not with words but through deeds that build bridges and uplift all.
The 130 attendees were welcomed by Wesley Dixon, Deputy to the President and Secretary to the Board of Trustees, and Wendy Maragh Taylor, Associate Dean of the College for Student Growth and Engagement. Dixon noted that watching everyone stream into the Villard Room for the event “reminded me of one of my favorite proverbs, which is ‘a single bracelet alone does not jingle.’ Hearing the jingling of your presence together in this room made me very excited and made me feel blessed, because you’re reminding me in this moment how beautiful community is, how festive community can be when it comes together and interacts in a very beautiful, positive, and generative way.”
Maragh Taylor had just returned from an international trip at 4:30 a.m., yet somehow was able to give an inspiring and coherent presentation that recalled a moment from her travels.
“As I headed to the airport, there was this little sign that said, ‘MLK: The dream! The dream! The dream!’ And it made me smile,” Maragh Taylor recounted. She then described how she, her spouse, and each of her two children discussed their different interpretations of what the sign meant. “That, too, made me smile,” said Maragh Taylor, “because I thought, ‘What a wonderful world where there can be diversity of thought, and that can be spoken out loud. How wonderful to have different perspectives based on our varying experiences and identities, and how this beautiful world would be lacking if that did not exist in our classrooms, on our college campuses, and our neighborhoods.’” Then she posed a question: “What are we willing to do to contribute to such a beautiful world? I invite you on this MLK Day not only to be here to reflect on his legacy, but to think about how we might participate and be engaged in the kind of service he was engaged in to contribute to a beautiful world.”
President Elizabeth H. Bradley echoed this thought by saying, “MLK Day reminds me of the forever struggle to find wholeness amid brokenness, to promote love and care even when we disagree; and when difference in worldviews tries to separate us, the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. can fuel us to work again and always to build that loving community.”
Jill Gomez, Executive Director of the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet, spoke about her group’s work to improve the prospects of local youth. “As Dr. King warned us, ‘wait’ too often means ‘never,’” she said. “In Poughkeepsie, the data tells us we have already waited too long. Graduation rates have remained largely unchanged for decades. In fact, since 1998, there’s only been one year that the graduation rate at Poughkeepsie High School was over 60%.” Gomez characterized this as a systemic failure, “and systems only change when people change how they show up,” she said. “Dr. King talks about constructive tension. The Children’s Cabinet exists to create that type of constructive tension—not to disrupt for disruption’s sake, but to make growth possible.”
A lively and theatrical Shona Tucker, Professor of Drama on the Mary Riepma Ross ’32 Chair, recalled how six million Americans came together to sign a petition to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday—some spurred on by Stevie Wonder’s 1980 song “Happy Birthday.” She closed her remarks, which included a captivating reflection on how King inspired her as a Black teen in Kentucky, with a rousing rendition of the song, during which many of the attendees joined in.
Zerah Ruiz ’25, a recent graduate who now works in the College’s Office of Community-Engaged Learning, also contributed musically by singing Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” Five students collaborated on a poetry reading: Jahdae Gocul ’29, Ian Saunders ’28, Brandon Ogesi ’29, Karolina Naidon ’26, and Mayte Segura ’28. And Reverend Callista Isabelle, Associate Dean of the College for Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices, offered closing remarks.
Maragh Taylor ended the festivities with an exhortation formulated like the rousing little airport sign she had seen a few hours before: “Do something! Do something! Do something!”