While most American students had Monday off, Kenyon hosted its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Dialogue. Alongside a shortened class schedule, Patrick D. Jones ’93 delivered a rousing keynote address in Rosse Hall to a sparse yet lively crowd.

In between touching performances from the Kenyon College Chamber Singers and POCapella, President Julie Kornfeld gave a short speech on the significance of MLK Day. “[King’s] work and his vision remain as critical today as we watch what is happening in the world, both near and far, as they were when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 62 years ago,” she said. Referring to a famous King quote, Kornfeld concluded her speech before introducing Jones: “My message, particularly for our students, is then to use your time here at Kenyon with purpose and passion. … That’s how we become the kind of citizens that the world needs. That’s how we can impact the long arc of justice.”

 Jones’ talk, titled “MLK, Fugitivity, and Creative Resistance in Troubled Times,” opened with a poem written by Carl Wendell Hines Jr. Originally written after the death of civil rights activist Malcolm X, Jones succinctly summarized the poem: “The dead make convenient heroes. … They can be praised without risk, monumentalized without consequence and reshaped to fit the needs of power in the present. In this way, it becomes easier to honor them than to confront the unfinished struggles that defined their lives.” Although the poem was written about Malcolm X, Jones argued it could also be applied to King: “The ‘Dream’ is remembered. The demands are not.” 

Although it is satisfying — and convenient — to remember King’s crusades as successful and therefore complete, Jones argued that reframing King’s causes as unfinished makes the point of MLK Day more impactful. The purpose of Jones’ talk was to remember a “dynamic, living version of Dr. King that continues to speak to us today, who challenges us in the now and who offers insight into some of the ways that we might maneuver through our own treacherous times,” he said.

Jones emphasized the importance of avoiding fatalism or cynicism in times of trouble. “Martin Luther King Jr. had a phrase for moments like these: He called it the fierce urgency of now,” Jones stated. “By this, he meant that there is a critical need for immediate, decisive action against injustice, poverty and inequality, rejecting complacency and gradualism because the future is now, and delaying action makes it too late.” 

“Progress, [King] insisted, is not inevitable. It has to be made,” Jones said. “His politics evolved because he remained in motion with history itself, refusing to freeze his conscience, refusing to protect his reputation, refusing to let yesterday’s victories become today’s limits.”

And finally, King valued humanity. “He practiced a politics that confronted injustice without reproducing its cruelty, that fought oppression without surrendering the soul of democracy,” Jones asserted. “He showed us that preserving human dignity is not a sentimental choice, it is a radical discipline and a form of freedom.”