
How Vanderbilt celebrated MLK Day
Vanderbilt has made MLK Day more of a day of service and less of a day of parties
On Monday, January 16th, Vanderbilt celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day by allowing its students to take a day off from the usual rigor of schoolwork.
While many celebrated the day off by sleeping in, just as many got them up and out of bed to participate in various community service events being offered by student organizations. However, this wasn’t always the case.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day was a day largely ignored by Vanderbilt’s population until the school year of 2010-2011, which was the first year Vanderbilt gave its students a day off to celebrate the day. Typically, MLK weekend is also the final weekend of Panhellenic sorority rush and when Bid Day takes place. In the first few years of MLK Day, new sorority members enjoyed the day off by drinking all day in something called “Black Monday”.
Junior Chidinma Ogojiaku said: “My freshman year everyone just went to Greek row and drank all day. They took Martin Luther King Jr, a black historical figure, and made a mockery out of his achievements by labeling the day Black Out day – a day for binge drinking instead of commemorating.”
While MLK Day was once widely ignored by the majority of Vanderbilt’s population in favor of spending the day partying, in the last two or three years MLK Day at Vanderbilt has been more focused on service. This is a recent, but welcomed change that allows students to give back to the Nashville community and partake in creating the vision that Martin Luther King Jr. seeked in his lifetime.
While the Panhellenic sororities and fraternities focus on their rush weekend, the Nu Rho chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Inc. threw a party on Sunday night entitled “No Klass Monday Party” at The End, a club near campus.
The President of this fraternity, senior Denzel Washington said: “I just wanted a fun beginning of the semester event to allow the students to get the ‘turn-up’ out of their system before the semester really got going.”
Many students that attended this party had the mindset of “late night, early morning” meaning that they would have fun the night before, but on the morning of MLK Day many were up by 8am for the annual Nashville Freedom March.
Vanderbilt University offered a large list of activities for students to attend throughout the whole weekend. Events ranged from helping underprivileged schools in Nashville area to working at a nearby ThriftSmart store to various teach ins. Students of all backgrounds came together to help improve the community around Vanderbilt campus.
Martin Luther King Jr once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”
Vanderbilt students took this idea and went above and beyond in performing service projects all weekend. Here is to the years of change at Vanderbilt and the change that Martin Luther King Jr. is inspiring in students to this day.