Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Symposium on Social Change

Each year, during the month of January, the University of Pennsylvania and our surrounding communities come together to commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The commemoration reminds us of our interdependence and reaffirms our commitment to the betterment of our communities through civility and service.

Opening our doors to embrace programming and visitors dedicated to realizing Dr. King's vision transforms the campus. Sharing our strengths and diversity as we commemorate Dr. King has an impact that can be felt across both the University of Pennsylvania’s campus and the Philadelphia community as a whole.

The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).