Letter from Robert Markarian to Martin Luther King, Jr. (May 28, 1964)
Description:
Springfield College faculty member Robert E. Markarian wrote this letter to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Mary 28, 1964. Markarian writes to provide Dr. King with a brief outline of the commencement weekend schedule and to ask him for details about his arrival and any accompanying guests. Markarian worked as an education professor and as the director of teacher education at Springfield College.
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In 1964, Springfield College shared a moment in history often overlooked by historians with honorary degree recipient and commencement speaker Martin Luther King Jr. Despite significant pressure from prominent shareholders and benefactors of the College to not invite Martin Luther King to speak at Commencement, college President Glenn A. Olds, a minister and conscientious objector during World War II, refused to waver. When King was arrested the day before, Olds contacted law enforcement officials, telling them that if they continued to hold King, school officials would fly down to tape the commencement address, leaving St. Augustine to deal with the attendant publicity. Whether or not his intervention played a role, King was released on a nine hundred dollar bond Saturday afternoon. Met at the airport by Springfield College Economics Professor Robert Randolph, later the first black president of the Massachusetts State College System at Westfield State, King toured the campus, gave a press conference, and shared a brief luncheon with faculty and administration. On the day of commencement, Black Muslim protestors who felt King was too conciliatory and bomb-sniffing dogs greeted the graduating class.
