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Inside Spencer: The KSRL Blog

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Welcome to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library blog! As the special collections and archives library at the University of Kansas, Spencer is home to remarkable and diverse collections of rare and unique items. Explore the blog to learn about the work we do and the materials we collect.

Throwback Thursday: “Fight for Justice in Your Campus Community” Edition

January 14th, 2021

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, this week’s post features a telegram he sent to KU students in 1965.

In March 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. was helping to organize and lead the Selma to Montgomery protest marches in Alabama. Church duties kept him from attending the first march on March 7, which became known as Bloody Sunday. The next day (March 8), approximately 150 Black and white student-members of KU’s Civil Rights Council staged a sit-in at Chancellor Wescoe’s office in Strong Hall to protest racial discrimination and the policies that supported it at the university. Dr. King sent the below telegram to the students three days later. It was the same day that, according to Wikipedia, he heard the news that President Lyndon B. Johnson was supporting a voting rights bill.

KU’s Civil Rights Council also received a telegram of support from James Farmer, who was a co-founder and National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

The first page of a telegram from Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Executive Committee of KU's Civil Rights Council, March 11, 1965
The second page of a telegram from Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Executive Committee of KU's Civil Rights Council, March 11, 1965
A telegram from Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Executive Committee of KU’s Civil Rights Council, March 11, 1965. University Archives. Call Number: RG 67/20 1965: Student Organizations: Civil Rights Council. Click images to enlarge.

In his telegram to the CRC members, Dr. King writes that “It is thoroughly heart warming and encouraging to know we have your support in the struggle for freedom and human dignity in Alabama. We hope [that] you will continue your fight for justice [in?] your campus community for, real knowledge and wisdom cannot flourish in an environment where there is discrimination on the basis of race and color. We [support] you because we know [that injustice anywhere is] a threat to justice everywhere. Keep the faith that right will prevail. You have my prayers for success in your creative efforts. The statement that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” comes from King’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Throwback Thursday: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Edition, Part II

January 17th, 2019

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Photograph of a Martin Luther King, Jr. march at KU, 1982

Martin Luther King, Jr. march at KU, January 11, 1982. The banner reads
“March for Martin (Martin Luther King, Jr.) Declare Jan. 15th a Nat’l. Holiday.”
Lawrence Journal-World Photo Collection, University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG LJW 71/18 1982 Prints: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

This photo was taken four years before the first nationally-observed holiday commemorating Dr. King’s birthday. For more information about the history of the holiday’s creation, see Don Wolfensberger’s essay “The Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday: The Long Struggle in Congress,” presented for a 2008 seminar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Throwback Thursday: Assassination Commemoration Edition

April 5th, 2018

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

This week’s photograph commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Photograph of a Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination demonstration, 1968

KU students in front of Strong Hall honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 5, 1968.
Lawrence Journal-World Photo Collection, University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG LJW 71/18 1968-04-06: Student Activities:
Student Protests (Photos). Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

The sign the students are holding – more visible in other photos of the events that took place on campus and in Lawrence on April 5, 1968 – says “Join us in our revulsion and sorrow at the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.”

An article in the Lawrence Daily Journal-World described the events of the day.

About 700 persons, mainly Kansas University faculty members and students, this morning participated in ceremonies honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the nonviolent prophet of the civil rights movement who was slain Thursday in Memphis, Tenn.

The vigil in front of KU’s Strong Hall began at 9:10 this morning as seven KU students lowered to half-staff the flag in front of the university administration building. They held a sign which said “Join us in our revulsion and sorrow at the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.”

By 10 a.m., there were 22 persons standing in front of the lowered flag. The group swelled to 61 by 11:15 a.m., and to about 100 persons by 11:20 a.m. Then, as classes changed, hundreds of persons approached the area to participate in a previously-announced memorial service sponsored by the KU Religious Advisors.

The final attendance estimate was made by Rev. Tom Rehorn of the Methodist Wesley Foundation.

Nicholas Gerren, Wilberforce, Ohio, junior at KU, read a eulogy, which said in part: “My black brother is dead. His only sin was a desire for peace, his only wrong was a love for the black man. Here in America, the land of the free press, the land of free speech, he took a stand, fought, spoke, and died for what he believed.”

The 15-minute ceremony ended at 11:45 this morning as Rev. Rehorn announced there would be a silent march in Dr. King’s honor. The march which began at Strong Hall ended in South Park. Leading several hundred persons en route down Mass. St. were two KU students who carried a sign which said “Martin Luther King –1929-1968.”

Earlier this morning, a group of KU students set up a booth in the main lobby of the Kansas Union, where they urged passers-by to send telegrams urging passage of civil rights legislation to their congressmen. The booth was placed in front of a large sign which said “Let’s Make This Tragedy Work for Peace – Help Pass the Bill.”

Tom Miller, Paola senior at KU, said he and Ned Valentine, Clay Center senior, organized the “telegram movement” Thursday night. He said they telephoned friends at various colleges around the nation, asking students to send telegrams to congressmen using passage of civil rights legislation bottled up in a House committee.

Students for [Democrat Eugene] McCarthy and Students for [Democrat Robert F.] Kennedy [in the 1968 election] both are helping with the “telegram movement,” Miller said.

While Miller and others were busy in the Union, a group of 36 Negro students were marching down Jayhawk Boulevard singing “We Shall Overcome.” The students, some wearing black armbands, gathered in front of Strong Hall for silent prayer at about 9:20 a.m. The brief ceremony ended at 9:30 a.m.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Throwback Thursday: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Edition

January 15th, 2015

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

We’re sharing this week’s photograph in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which will be celebrated next Monday. By 1986, seventeen states had official King holidays. However, January 20th of that year – the date of the KU march shown in the picture below – marked the first nationally-observed holiday commemorating Dr. King’s birthday.

Photograph of a Martin Luther King, Jr. march, 1986

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march, 1986. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/18 1986 Prints: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

For more information about the history of the holiday’s creation, see the article in the online King Encyclopedia, provided by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University (1). Don Wolfensberger’s essay “The Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday: The Long Struggle in Congress,” presented for a 2008 seminar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, provides more a detailed history.

(1) The original version of this article linked to the King Center‘s chronology of the “Making of the King Holiday.” That URL is no longer accurate and, as of this update in February 2022, the page could not be found.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Collection Snapshot: Living the Dream

January 21st, 2013

Reposted from the KU Libraries Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/KULibraries

Picture of marchers with the banner, "Living the Dream - Martin Luther King Jr / University of Kansas Jan. 20, 1986" on the KU Campus

Remembering Dr. King today with an image from the University Archives in the Spencer Research Library, home to some of the most precious materials in the world—-and to gems like this one–that capture remarkable moments in our rich KU history.