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Day is message of a movement
RELATED: Photos | More photos | Video: Springfield MLK walk
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — To Lani Guinier, both the preacher and the president deserve credit for passing civil rights legislation, but an unsung group also deserves credit.
Without the inspiration and lobbying of Martin Luther King Jr. and without the sponsorship and signing of President Lyndon Johnson, the bills wouldn't have become law, Guinier told about 900 people Monday at the Wittenberg University Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Convocation.
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But credit also goes to the unheralded marchers and those who stood up for civil rights, Guinier said.
"Neither of those two gentlemen should deserve or proclaim all of the credit ... That credit belongs to a movement," she said.
Guinier became the first black female tenured professor at Harvard Law School in 1998. Guinier also has headed the voting rights project at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and served in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department.
The holiday and convocation is a chance for people to deepen their understanding of each other, Wittenberg President Mark Erickson said.
"It's also a day for us to reflect individually and collectively as a community about our own challenges as we each try to live up to Dr. King's vision," he said.
Guinier changed her speech topic to discuss the debate over who deserves credit for the legislation, a debate sparked by a comment from presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton.
She also discussed leadership, which she said should be like a
shepherd who finds one or two energetic sheep in the flock moving in the right direction and then corrals the rest to follow them.
That means leadership is in everyone, Guinier said.
"To me, the message of this holiday is not the message simply of a dreamer or a preacher or a president," she said. "It is the message of a movement."