MANSFIELD — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that an idea titled “the evil triplets” threatened American democracy.
The triplets’ names? Racism, poverty and violence.
During the Kaleidoscope Community Conversations event on Thursday night at Mansfield’s Renaissance Theatre, Dr. Lerone Martin conducted a deep dive into these issues and more in terms of how they connect to today’s society.
Martin, a Fostoria native and religious studies professor at Stanford University, addressed 200 people to start the night’s conversation.
In his opening speech, Martin intertwined Bible scriptures with King’s evil triplets idea, as he spoke about the peaceful dialogue needed, not a monologue, between people.
“I want to close by asking all of you to consider to have Martin Luther King Jr. as your conversation partner as you think about all that plagues our country today,” Martin said.
“So this is what King would say, and I ask that you have him as your conversation partner today. You don’t have to be a preacher, you don’t have to have advanced degrees.
“All you have to have is a heart to serve. All you have to do is figure out how you can use your time, your talent, or your treasure, to help bring about the end of the triple evils.”
Allred and Dr. Martin’s conversation starts
Following Martin’s address, Jay Allred, CEO of Source Media Properties, talked with Martin about King’s teachings and how we can apply them to today’s world.
“One of the things I want to do with Dr. Martin is to make the past present and to take the present to the past, to give us some connective tissue that we can all live with around the moment that we’re in,” Allred said.
Allred noted today’s polarized society and how people can become so focused on only what they perceive as right, and asked Martin what King’s work can teach us about that.
“We as people of faith should always be open to having our minds changed, and I think we can learn that from the Civil Rights Movement,” Martin responded.
“Dr. King’s message is that people who often fought against his ideas of ending segregation, fought against his ideas around the war, his ideas around poverty, many of those people had their minds changed while he was alive and even after his death.
“I think that teaches us a lesson to always remain open.”
Citing their access to technology and hopefulness, Martin thinks young people can fix issues in our society.
Public spaces for discourse and if MLK was here today
Allred asked if college campuses are still a safe place for civil disagreement.
While noting that he promotes healthy debates in his Stanford classroom, Martin couldn’t say the same for the rest of society’s spaces.
“We don’t have broader society spaces where people come together and debate ideas … we’re very polarized,” Martin said.
“I’ve read about citing people who talk about good conflict, and that polarization is actually the result of a lack of being able to talk about things, and so we retreat into our silos.”
Martin said he thinks college students reflect this idea instead of being the reason polarization exists.
Martin called for communities and classrooms to be spaces where students can see civil disagreement, so they can model it.
If King were here today, Martin thinks he would see some positives and negatives.
The positives: the increase in voter registration, the diversity among elected officials and more diverse college and university campuses.
The negatives: not learning from history, and people of goodwill taking their foot off the gas in terms of racial equality.
Fostering civil conversations
To close, Allred and Martin continued their conversation on how people can try and find civil disagreements.
Ultimately, Martin emphasized the need for people to choose nonviolence in times of discourse.
Audience members then came up and asked a variety of questions pertaining to Martin’s talk with Allred and his previous work.
Robert Kelley, a Lexington Village Council candidate, was one of the audience members who asked Martin a question and said the following about King after the event.
“It’s nothing like seeing a man, or a woman, that’s a messenger [of hope]. It’s deeper than the person, and so I think that’s why his message is still relevant today.”
Below are some more responses from audience members after the event had ended, as well as a photo gallery from the evening.
“I thought it was very insightful. I thought he had ideas that were really applicable, things we can do in everyday life. And I think it created some space for dialogue that we may not normally have,” Nikki Noel said.
“It was very refreshing, and I appreciated hearing the history. I learned more about Martin Luther King than I knew,” another audience member added. “It gave me some hope for the future.”
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