March 30, 2006

By Lauren Heaton

Six months after announcing the establishment of the Coretta Scott King Center, Antioch College has decided to locate the center in the campus gathering space at Livermore and West Center College Streets.

And this Saturday, April 1, the new center will sponsor its second event, the Midwest Hip Hop Convergence.

This weekend’s event will center on the experience and the scholarship of the poetic musical form that arose from the South Bronx. The weekend will begin with a hip hop dance workshop and continue with speakers, round table discussions and other performances.

Antioch College President Steve Lawry said the weekend is representative of King Center programs in that it challenges a diverse group of residents, students and scholars intellectually and culturally to broaden their sense of identity.

Antioch launched the King Center in the fall of 2005 in honor of Coretta King, a college alumnus. At the time, college officials described the center’s purpose as promoting the college’s historical emphasis on diversity and freedom of thought.

“The center will really help the college become a leader in exploring and thinking about what the notion of the “beloved community” means today,” Lawry said last week. “It’s born of and built on the recognition of our mutuality of interests and fate. We’re all bound up in the common enterprise of how to better build the foundations of social justice and social equity as building blocks of the beloved community.”

In 1968, Mrs. King dedicated the King Center in Atlanta to the advancement of her husband’s work and his dream of the “beloved community,” the nonviolent reconciliation and integration of humanity. The college wanted a separate center dedicated to Coretta Scott King, who died in January after approving the plans for Antioch’s new center.

Ona Harshaw, who is Antioch’s diversity advocate and the Bonner Scholarship coordinator, has served as the coordinator of the center.

“Coretta Scott King was her own person, and there’s a lot we can reveal to the public that honors her passions and her projects,” Harshaw said. “We lost Mr. King a long time ago, but Mrs. King went on and on and on. The “beloved community” is something Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of, and it’s something Coretta Scott King lived.”

Antioch has met enthusiastic support from Atlanta King Center representatives, Lawry said, and there are plans to link the two facilities to build strong programming and financial support.

According to Lynda Sirk, director of communications and public relations for the college, Delta Airlines has donated $300,000 for a five-year scholarship fund for the center, Coca-Cola has given $25,000, and the college has also received $67,000 in memorial contributions in honor of King, including $1,000 from Muhammad Ali and his wife.

Renovations of the gathering space will cost about $500,000 and are contingent on fundraising, Lawry said.

Antioch hopes to be able to retain the large open space toward the front of the building for public events and seminars and possibly a library. The security office will serve as the director’s office, and the upstairs apartment will be for more office space, Lawry said.

Harshaw said she likes the new location because it gets great light, and it connects with the college’s renovation plans for Livermore Street. That corner is also visible and accessible to the Yellow Springs community, and both she and Lawry are excited about welcoming local residents to attend programs and be part of the center’s pursuits.

Though last fall the college had hired a director for the center, the person has since left the project. The King Center’s advisory board, including Lawry, Vice President Rick Jurasek, Beverly Rogers, Julie Gallager, Jimmy Williams, one student and the Community Government staff, will begin the search for a new director.

In the meantime, the college has two endowed faculty chairs dedicated to exploring issues of cultural and intellectual freedom, and the center is working on future programing.

Harshaw said she hopes to see both the Hip Hop Convergence and the Native American Symposium, which the center organized last fall to explore the history and future of the Miami Indian movement, become annual events. But she remains open to allowing the new director to define future programming for the center.

“We’ve got a big job ahead, but it’s an exciting initiative, and there’s tons and tons of potential,” she said.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com