Selected Events 2008  

Honoring Martin Luther King

Second from the left: Consul General Mark Scheland)

April 4-6, 2008. Forty years after Martin Luther King’s death, the Evangelical Academy Thüringen organized a symposium entitled, "I have a dream…" to honor King’s life and legacy. Leipzig Consulate General supported the event with Consul General Mark Scheland delivering welcoming remarks to an audience of scholars, theologians, students and the general public. Many came to pay tribute to Dr. King by learning more about the man, his public persona and the societal circumstances through which, and in spite of which, he took action. Speaking in German, Scheland reflected on the civil rights era through the eyes of two southern women, relating the experiences of a member of his wife’s family whose childhood community in Virginia resisted desegregation. He also quoted from recent remarks by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on how, throughout the tribulations of the civil rights movement, African Americans believed in and loved their country, and the fundamental rights for which it stands. Symposium participants included: Prof. Michael Haspel (Jena), Prof Peter Ling (Nottingham), Dr. Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson (München) Prof. Heinrich W. Grosse (Hannover), Dr. Simon Wendt (Heidelberg), Prof. Manfred Berg (Heidelberg), Prof. Michael Hochgeschwender, and pastor Johannes Sparsbrod (Oßmannstedt). Among the topics addressed were: the church as the center of black communities which provided the platform and political instrument for King and other activists; how King’s peaceful demonstrations proved as vital as his most famous speeches; how King influenced the path to black voting rights legislation in 1965, and his opposition to the war in Vietnam.