King remembered

DeForest Soaries

The University paid tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. Jan. 21 with a program in Richardson Auditorium. During the event, area school children who entered essay and poster contests organized by the Office of Public Affairs were honored for their work. This year's winners included siblings Christian and Sophia Ginez. This is the fifth consecutive year that Christian, an eighth-grader at Crossroads Middle School in South Brunswick, has won a prize in the contest; he has passed the legacy on to his sister, who is a fourth-grader at Indian Fields Elementary School in Dayton. The program also included performances by the Praise Ensemble from the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset and a keynote address by DeForest Soaries, senior pastor at the church and New Jersey's secretary of state from 1999 to 2002.

Reflecting on the events of Sept. 11, Soaries noted that the terrorist attacks were not aimed at any particular ethnic group in America. He said the individual identities of people in this country were not under attack, but that the way of life of the American people was. "Whether writing an essay or marching down the streets in Birmingham, our country needs people who are willing to sustain our way of life," he said. Soaries encouraged the audience to follow the example set by King "to dedicate our lives to eradicating violence as a way of life."