Provided by Jon Umphress
John Lomax, retired professor of history at Ohio Northern University, told Ada Kiwanis members that “Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech at ONU in 1968 was a watershed moment in the life of the university as well as his work in leading the civil rights movement.”

King spoke at ONU on Jan. 11, 1968.

Lomax was the Kiwanis Club’s guest on Jan. 22. He said that King’s talk occurred in the midst of his ‘poor people’s campaign’ and was at the beginning of Dr. King talking against the Vietnam War.

“It is clear from his words that Dr. King was passionate about issues of justice and equality, issues for which he fought until the day he died,” said Lomax.

King’s talk at was one of the last speeches he gave at a college or university. According to ONU archivist Paul Logsdon, King spoke at Kansas State University on Jan. 19, 1968, and at Manchester (Indiana) College the next month.

He was assassinated by James Earl Ray just three months later in Memphis, Tennessee.

Lomax also discussed the timeline of the of the King statue’s construction, on campus, giving credit to Daniel DiBiasio, ONU president, for the project’s completion.

Several club members shared their memories of King’s visit to the university, including club member Charles Van Dyne, who was one of the attendees to the historic speech in Taft Gymnasium.