By Monty Siekerman
Today marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech at Ohio Northern University on Jan. 11, 1968. A copy of his 50-minute speech can be heard at the website Onu.edu/MLK. Other material about his visit to ONU is at that website, as well.

The university will recognize his visit during a forum at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 18 in the Freed Center. Panel members, all of whom attended Dr. King’s talk, include two professors, an administrator, and three people who were students at that time. They will discuss their remembrances of the event as well as how the speech affected them and others in the past half century. The Jan. 18 program is free and open to the public.

There will be an unveiling of a statue of Dr. King on Saturday, April 17, outside Taft Hall.  Dr. King spoke in Taft, which at that time was the university’s 2800-seat gymnasium. His talk was also piped into Lehr Auditorium for the overflow crowd.