To fully understand the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., “focus on who King was, not who people who like to whitewash history would have you believe he was, not focus on the commercialized and the sanitized version of who they want you to think he was, but focus on who he actually was,” the George Washington University King Week keynote speaker told an audience last week.
The speaker, international influencer and impact strategist Adjoa Asamoah, Ed.D. ’24, advised the audience in the University Student Center amphitheater to listen to King’s full speech he delivered at the March on Washington in August 1963, which has come to be known as his “I Have a Dream” speech.
“The having a dream part was ad libbed,” she said. “It was a jobs and justice speech, which sadly now is timely.”
In opening remarks, the newly appointed Director of the Multicultural Student Services Center (MSSC) Vanice Antrum said the event was “an opportunity to reflect on how we as individuals and as a community can continue Dr. King’s legacy by turning our values into meaningful impact.”
“King believed that true strength is not found in division but in coming together, uplifting one another in the pursuit of equity, dignity and lasting change,” she said.
Hailey Williams, MSSC program coordinator for race, ethnicity and culture, introduced Asamoah as an award-winning social impact strategist, highly sought after political operative and history-making policy architect who developed the legislative strategy for the groundbreaking Crown Act, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. That law, which has been passed by 26 states and the U.S. House of Representatives, protects against discrimination based on the texture of hair and style. MSSC sponsored the event.
Asamoah said her main motivation was to help others realize civic engagement beyond just voting. She focused on the King she described as an “incomparable historic figure,” “sophisticated thinker” and “effective strategist who was way ahead of his time,” who “understood that while race is certainly a social construct, the way we talk about it, racism is very real.”
Invoking a call and response at times, she gave a survey of King’s many speeches such as the one “on the three evils of society: poverty, militarism and racism” in which he spoke against the Vietnam War in 1967, “calling for a recapture of the revolutionary spirit.”
“Say ‘revolutionary,’” she called out to the audience.
Growing up with a Ghanaian father who was born during the country’s colonial era and a mother who came from the Jim Crow South, it was “unavoidable,” she said, that she would become an activist having attended her first political rally on her father’s shoulders at the age of 2.
She reminded students they also have “power when equipped with the knowledge of history, which is why so many folks want to ban books containing it. Remember the fight for our rights is ongoing and it must be collective.”
“Say ‘collective.’”
Asamoah warned against remembering King’s “convenient quotes” but dismissing the full scope of his work.
“Let us remember his ideas about equality were once considered radical, and he too was deemed a threat,” she said. “Let us make intentional efforts to fully understand what he thought to do and honor him by continuing to do the work. Let us all take time to learn more about his body of work beyond what was taught in the annual assembly at your school and/or the history course you may be taking here at GW.
“[King] said call it democracy or democratic socialism but there must be a better distribution of wealth in this country for all god’s children,” Asamoah said. “Meanwhile folks are out here talking about merit as if somehow there hasn’t always been racial preference in this country because of the past, and the preference has been white.”
In an exchange with Ashley Gyapomah, a senior and MSSC staff member, who asked how students could create a sense of solidarity and connection in communities where there may be division or apathy, Asamoah responded that “division is a luxury we don’t have.”
“We don’t have the privilege of not getting along, not in this moment,” she said. But “we can have a Jollof War all day long.”
Asamoah ended her talk reminding the audience of broad spectrum of ideologies in the struggle for justice among Black people and that like King they all offer paths to follow. “We are in the battle of our lives at this point,” she said. “Some people say Carter G. Woodson. Some people say DuBois. Some people say Martin. Some people say Malcolm. Some people say Garvey. Some people say Garvey and Nkrumah. Some people say Kenyatta. It’s all. It doesn’t have to be an either or.”
A collective response came from the audience: “Preach.”
See a GW Magazine feature story on Adjoa Asamoah