Photographs are invaluable archival resources. From daguerreotypes to contemporary digital snapshots, they convey information about people, places, and events that may elude the written record.
Contact sheets, like this one produced by the Harvard News Office during the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s visit to Harvard in 1965, capture a moment in time. As the images proceed, one after another, we are able to follow along as the Rev. King walks through Harvard Yard and a story unfolds.
Harvard’s Memorial Church traditionally opens its pulpit to a number of guest preachers every year. On January 10, 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King delivered the Sunday sermon before an overflow crowd. The Rev. King had been guest preacher once before during the 1959-1960 academic year.
In 1964, Rev. King received the Nobel Peace Prize and his 1965 visit to Harvard was covered by local and national press. A Harvard University News Office photographer documented King’s visit and the resulting contact sheets recreate this moment in time. One after another, the images move and flow as they show King walking in the Yard and Tercentenary Theatre, talking with Harvard President Nathan Marsh Pusey and University Preacher the Rev. Charles P. Price, ascending the stairs to Memorial Church, and engaging in conversation with students and faculty.
Just two months later, on another Sunday, March 7, 1965, a group of protesters set out on a march through Selma, Alabama to raise awareness of the disenfranchisement of African-Americans. Known as "Bloody Sunday," the marchers were brutally beaten by Alabama State troopers after they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. In the wake of these events, King went to Selma and on March 9, led a symbolic march to the Pettus Bridge for a prayer vigil.
The previous Friday, March 5, the Harvard-Radcliffe Young Democrats had just voted to assist the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in recruiting students for a summer voter registration project. In response to events in Selma, Harvard students and faculty began a letter-writing campaign to President Lyndon B. Johnson and Alabama Governor George Wallace to demand protection for all citizens of Alabama. On Tuesday, March 9, King led a group primarily made up of clergy back to the Pettus Bridge for a prayer vigil. This time his group of marchers included five Harvard professors and nine graduate students, the majority from Harvard’s Divinity School.
On March 21, 1965, a number of Harvard faculty and students joined Rev. King, the SCLC, and thousands of other civil rights marchers on the third Selma march, proceeding all the way from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The Harvard Crimson sent student reporters to cover the civil rights movement in Alabama, faculty and student groups held teach-ins on campus about voting rights, and a number of students worked that summer on the SCLC’s voter registration drive.
That August, President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which empowered the federal government to oversee voter registration and elections in counties that had used tests to determine voter eligibility, banned discriminatory literacy tests, and expanded voting rights for non-English speaking Americans.
In March 1968, the Harvard College Class of 1968 invited Rev. King to speak at Class Day to ensure that the Vietnam War, civil rights, and urban affairs were addressed directly during Commencement week ceremonies. According to the Harvard Crimson, this was the first time a Harvard senior class independently invited its own speaker for Class Day exercises. It is interesting to note that members of the Class of 1968 were freshmen when King delivered his 1965 Memorial Church sermon and led the marches in Selma.
On April 4, 1968, Rev. King was murdered. Harvard responded to this tragedy with prayer and protest, along with pledges of funds, and administrative and academic resources to continue Rev. King’s fight for justice. On April 9th, from the same podium in Memorial Church where Rev. King had delivered his two guest sermons, President Pusey delivered the introductory remarks for a memorial service celebrating King’s life.
In the days that followed King’s death, John T. O’Connor, former United States Secretary of Commerce, asked the Harvard Law School to rename the scholarship fund he had established for the benefit of African-Americans to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Fund; the Harvard College Class of 1943, which was celebrating its 25th Anniversary Reunion, established the Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Fund to aid African-American undergraduates; and Professor Henry Rosovsky was appointed Chairman of the Faculty Standing Committee on African and Afro-American Studies, which set out to formulate recommendations for the admission and guidance of African-American students, develop curriculum dealing with various aspects of the African and African-American experience, and consider the creation of a concentration in and/or establishment of a department of Afro-American Studies.
Following Rev. King’s assassination, the 1968 Class Committee invited his widow, Coretta Scott King, to speak at Class Day and she accepted their invitation. On Wednesday, June 12, a week after the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Mrs. King addressed the Class of 1968, their families, and friends with these words:
"As young people, as students, your lives have been greatly affected by the loss of these champions of freedom, of justice, of human dignity and peace...Your generation must speak out with righteous indignation against the forces which are seeking to destroy us...
...Historians of the future may record that the alliance of the civil rights movement with the student movement that began in the late 1950’s and matured into broad political and social action in the 60’s was the salvation of the nation."
(HUC 6968 "Speech by Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Class Day of Harvard College").
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Harvard News Office Contact Sheet
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., January 10, 1965
UAV 605, Box 86
Harvard News Office Contact Sheet
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., January 10, 1965
UAV 605, Box 86
Harvard News Office Contact Sheet
Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Class Day Speech, June 12, 1968
UAV 605, Box 86
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