Everything that happened at the Martin Luther King Jr celebration last night

Last night Dr. Marc Lamont Hill addressed Syracuse University as a keynote speaker for the 31st Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at the Carrier Dome.

He talked about racial injustice and urged the audience to become social activists.

Dr. Hill is a social activist in the media and academic fields. He is the host of HuffPost Live and BET News and a regular contributor to CNN. He also serves as Distinguished Professor of African American Studies at Morehouse College.

Now he brought the activism to the yearly MLK Celebration, the university-sponsored event in to honor King’s legacy in social activism.

Syeisha Byrd, one of the 2016 Celebration Committee members, recognized Dr. Hill for his distinguished social activism, especially in terms of violence resulted from the confrontation between black people and the police.

“He’s been at the face of those issues,” Byrd said.

Dr. Hill began the speech by highly praising black activism. “Black folks lifted every voice. Black folks have always been America’s moral conscience,” he said. “Even at our worst, we didn’t want to reverse the relationship of oppression. We wanted to create a world where everybody would be free. We loved America when America didn’t love America.”

People tweeted in agreement throughout the event

He pointed out how racial injustice persisted in terms of poverty, education and mass incarceration, which left a lot of people of color behind. For example, it took about 20 minutes for some students of color to get into schools due to the security checks they had to receive from the police, including drug tests, metal detectors and fingerprint scans. In addition, very few teachers or figures in textbooks looked like them since the faculty and curriculum were Caucasian-centered, and money was directed from education to prisons, as he also addressed in the speech.

“Don’t let them tell you there is an achievement gap. You tell them there is a funding gap, an investment gap, a care gap,” Dr. Hill said. “We are building first-class jails and second-class schools.”

Dr. Hill continued to say how more African Americans between 20 and 29 got pulled over by the police more often than white men between 25 and 32 even though the latter were more likely to have drugs and guns in their cars. “The problem is not driving while black. The problem is patrolling while racists,” he said.

He called the underfunded education and the racial injustice in criminal justice system a “crisis” that could not be solved by electing the first black president. “Dr. King’s legacy offered a few things that we can do. The first thing that Dr. King offered us is listening. We must listen carefully,” Dr. Hill said, pointing out that Dr. King listened to voices from various people during the Civil Rights movement, from the Chicano campaign to antiwar activists. He urged the audience to listen to voices from all groups, including the poor, women and LGBT groups. “When we have a coalition of different races and different cultures, we are stronger and better,” he said.

“You can’t talk Martin Luther King and not talk about acting. Acting bravely,” Dr. Hill continued.

He pointed out that acting bravely meant to speak the truth when it was difficult to speak up and to be alone. Using Dr. King again as an example, he said Dr. King continued speaking against the Vietnam War in 1968 even though that cost him to lose allies he gained during the 1963 March for Washington. He said activists like Dr. King would face difficult times when the truth they spoke was not among the most popular voices.

“There are times when you want to quit, times when you want to break down because you feel alone,” Dr. Hill said. “I know you feel alone, but King was alone. Malcolm was alone. Harriet was alone.”

“The challenge for us is to fight off the aloneness, to do what you do, believe what you believe, feel what you feel, and to make it happen,” Dr. Hill said, referring to racial justice.

The audience clapped and shouted “yes” during the speech. They stood up, applauded and cheered for a minute at the end of it.

Ashley McBride, graduate student majoring in magazine, newspaper and online journalism described the speaker as “enticing” and “really getting involved with other people.”

Marriage and Family Therapy graduate student Phalande Jean said the speech covered some tough issues such as listening to the marginalized groups.

“I believe everyone is this Dome was able to relate at some point with multiple aspects of his speech,” African American Studies and Spanish Senior Danielle Reed said. “He delivered it perfectly. It is really phenomenal to watch and to witness.”