“We can choose to get up off of our apathy.”
– Yolanda King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., on the power of choice

In a combination speech and theatrical performance Friday night, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. stressed the importance of choice and unity at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Yolanda King said in her performance, titled “Non-Violence as a Way of Life,” that people have the power of choice in everyday life.

“We can choose to get up off of our apathy,” she said.

Acknowledging that there is a “common humanity” among all people, King said, “We have much work to do.”

She said we must use non-violence as more than just social change — as a way of life. We must choose to take a stand, both as individuals and as a community, she said.

“(It’s) far easier to build a monument than it is to make a better world,” King said.

We must “move a notch higher of simply tolerating,” she said.

King’s presentation Friday night included a speech occasionally interrupted with brief theatrical performances intended to highlight certain points, including one in which she recited “Human Family,” a poem by Maya Angelou.

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike,” she recited.

King used other examples to highlight her thoughts on the power of choice. She said that Rosa Parks chose to take a stand on Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Ala., when she refused to move from her seat on the bus.

She also mentioned Bull Connor, who used water hoses and dogs to ward off civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, including performing a brief theatrical scene based on the events.

“The civil rights movement was not a mirage,” King said. “My father’s words ring persistently.”

King spoke at UWM nearly 40 years after her father did.

“We have come to the day when a piece of freedom is not enough,” Martin Luther King Jr. told an audience of about 1,000 in the Union Ballroom on Nov. 23, 1965. “Freedom is a single thing, and you have to have all of it or you have none of it.”

Chancellor Carlos Santiago said that the university has made strides with diversity, but cautioned that there’s more work to do.

He said Yolanda King’s message was universal and that we need to work to make sure that we are “ensuring a viable, diverse, strong community.”

Ecclesiastes Allen, the president of the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare Alumni Association, said, “only a heart full of compassion and a soul full of love” can help bring people together.

It was “truly a blessing” to hear King talk, said Tiffany Thomas, a junior in criminal justice in the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare.

She said that King’s performance was in the same vein with the theme of Helen Bader’s life.

Yolanda King’s presentation highlighted the capstone event of the 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare at the Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts.

“It was a heart-warming experience,” said Vanessa Reece, mentor manager at New Concept Self Development Center, a Milwaukee Public Schools institution.

Stan Stojkovic, dean of the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, said, “We thought her message would be an important one for people to hear.”

He said Yolanda King’s presentation was the culmination of a year-long celebration of the school’s 40th anniversary, which included a series of colloquia and a reception last year.

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