Diversity filled Kent State’s ballroom Thursday afternoon when people gathered to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. and hear former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume speak.

Thursday was the ninth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at Kent State. This year, the focus was “empowering the individual, strengthening the community.”

President Lester Lefton, Alfreda Brown, vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Richard Serpe, Department of Sociology chairman, introduced Mfume with welcoming speeches.

Mfume began his speech by talking about his tragic past: living in poverty and the death of his mother.

He believes that even those who have very little can still become leaders.

“I’ve always believed that leaders come from the bottom up,” Mfume said.

Throughout history, our nation has treated various ethnicities wrong, he said, from sending Jewish families back to Hitler to being aggressive with those related to the Muslim religion after September 11.

Mfume said to achieve change all people have to forget blame and excuses. The approach needed to face these difficulties needs to be a new one. There’s still a long way to go to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream a reality, he said.

“Truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder,” Mfume said.

People need to speak out on what is wrong and really mean it or it will deplete the nation, Mfume said.

Paul Odell-Scott, business and interfaith intern at United Christian Ministries, is a NAACP member and said he was excited to hear Mfume speak.

“Mfume left Congress to take over NAACP when it was in trouble, and he brought it out and made it into such a really great organization,” Odell-Scott said.

Westley Baker, program chair for the Black Graduate Student Association, liked the way Kent State gave him the opportunity to hear a major political figure. He said they didn’t have guest speakers at his undergraduate university.

He said he was really interested in meeting Mfume because he was a former NAACP president and has traveled to many places dealing with civil rights.

“I’m real interested to see him and meet him,” Baker said. “I’ve never met a major political figure before.”

“I’m excited to hear how he really talks on a human level,” Baker said.

Both Baker and Odell-Scott had the opportunity to attend a private forum after Mfume’s speech.

Contact Brittney Trojanowski at [email protected].