By Shawn Proctor

Beaudry Rae Allen presents at Freedom School in 2020.

Today marks the 16th annual Freedom School at Villanova, celebrating the vision and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by presenting on topics relevant to Dr. King’s social justice work.

Above, Beaudry Rae Allen, Digital and Preservation Archivist at Falvey Library, presented “Out of the Archives” at the 2020 Freedom School. She returns to Freedom School to present  “Collection Development Centered on Civil Rights” at 2:30 p.m. in the St. David’s Room, Connelly Center.

Shawn Proctor, MFA, is Communication and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Library.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

In Anne of Avonlea, L. M. Montgomery wrote, “Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.”

Welcome back, Wildcats! It’s a new year and a new semester. That means it’s a new opportunity to learn from the mistakes you made last semester and start this semester with a fresh mindset. Maybe you slacked off on schoolwork, maybe you didn’t prioritize enough time for self-care, maybe you didn’t see your friends as much as you wanted to. Whatever you may have struggled with, now is the perfect chance to learn from those mistakes.

THIS WEEK AT FALVEY

Tuesday, January 16

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Wednesday, January 17

Data Visualization Working Session | 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. | Digital Scholarship Lab | Free & Open to Villanova Students, Faculty, & Staff | Register Here

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Textbooks & Tacos | 5-6 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Villanova Community | ACS-Approved | Refreshments Served

Thursday, January 18

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Sunday, January 21

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

HOLIDAYS THIS WEEK

As you likely know, thanks to this day off, today, Jan. 15, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day (check out last year’s Weekend Recs on Dr. King if you want some MLK Day recs) as well as Civil Rights Day. Here are some other holidays coming up this week:

Photo by Adrien Delforge on Unsplash

Today is also National Bagel Day, the perfect excuse to enjoy this Eastern European Jewish creation. Whether you need an on-the-go breakfast food or need some comfort food, bagels are such a versatile food. And if you really want a good bagel (and can’t travel to New York), go to a local bagel shop. If you’re out by Royersford or Pottstown, I’d highly recommend Barrister’s Bagels.

More into spicy food? Tomorrow, Jan. 16, is International Hot and Spicy Food Day. If you’re a fan of spice, you can celebrate this holiday by eating some of your favorite spicy foods, whether it’s hot wings, hot sauce, jalapeño poppers, Flaming Hot Cheetos, or any other go-tos. The options are practically endless.

Need to get some steps in? This Saturday, Jan. 20, is Take a Walk Outdoors Day. It might be freezing outside, but that doesn’t have to stop you. Even if it’s just 15 minutes around campus, going for a walk outdoors can help you get some fresh air and walk off any stress or negativity you might be feeling.

For all athleisure fans, International Sweatpants Day is this Sunday, Jan. 21. With the cold weather, sweatpants are the perfect option to stay warm and comfortable.

Annie Stockmal is a second-year graduate student in the Communication Department and Graduate Assistant in Falvey Library.

…Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children…

“I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr., August 28th, 1963

Center for Peace and Justice

In honor of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Falvey Library and Center for Peace and Justice Education have come together to present an area to reflect and celebrate the historic day. By the Center for Peace and Justice Education today, there will be images from Villanova University’s Distinctive Collections of Martin Luther King Jr from the 1960s. Of particular note, there is a pennant passed out during the March on Washington day that is currently housed at in Distinctive Collections at Falvey Library. On display are other images of King at other protests and his visit to Villanova in 1965.

We Shall Overcome. I Marched for Equality in the Freedom Parade. Pennant distributed to attendees on August 28th, 1963. Distinctive Collections, Falvey Library.

The March on Washington, also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a massive protest march on August 28th, 1963, when over 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.  The event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans. Other speakers included A. Phillip Randolph, the march director and founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Roy Wilkins, the NAACP’s executive secretary; Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers; and John Lewis, led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Even sixty years later the march and MLK’s words still resonate today just as injustice and white supremacy evolves over time and the fight for equality continues for social justice, voting rights, education, and criminal reform.

–Villanova’s Connection to the “I Have a Dream” Speech–

King’s physical speech was originally in possession of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame player and coach George Raveling, who came in receipt of the artifact while volunteering at the 1963 March on Washington. Villanova University became the speech’s steward and has entered into a long-term loan agreement with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture to display it.

Beaudry Allen, Digital and Preservation Archivist. Photo courtesy of Ethan Shea, Graduate Assistant Falvey Library.

Rebecca Oviedo, Distinctive Collections Archivist. Photo courtesy of Ethan Shea, Graduate Assistant Falvey Library.

Linda Hauck, Business Librarian. Photos courtesy of Kallie Stahl, Communication & Marketing Specialist.

Thanks to everyone who attended the 2023 Freedom School yesterday! Falvey Library staff celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  with two workshops focusing on various topics surrounding MLK’s vision and work:

• “Nurturing Social and Economic Justice on Campus: Affordable Materials Project” by Linda Hauck, Business Librarian, and Amy Spare, Associate Director for Law Library Services & Legal Research Instructor.
• “Students Call for Divestment: Student Activism and their Records” by Beaudry Allen, Digital and Preservation Archivist, University Archives, and Rebecca Oviedo, Distinctive Collections Archivist.

Gina Duffy, Communication & Marketing Program Manager, and Kallie Stahl, Communication & Marketing Specialist, were also in attendance sharing helpful library recourses with attendees.

Gina Duffy, Communication & Marketing Program Manager, and Kallie Stahl, Communication & Marketing Specialist. Photo courtesy of Ethan Shea, Graduate Assistant Falvey Library.

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

Photo by Woubishet Z. Taffese on Unsplash

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is without a doubt the most remembered and revered Civil Rights activist in the United States. From his rise to prominence with his activism and work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to his horrific assassination, and with an entire day dedicated to his life, his modern acclaim is unsurprising.

Consequently, as Civil rights and racial justice have progressed (although the progress is sometimes very meager and disappointing), the radical nature of Dr. King has largely been replaced with a liberalized image, a man seeking moderate change. Yet, in the 1950s and 60s, Dr. King was anything but a liberal or moderate figure, he was directly challenging the U.S. government, a government that very much needed to be challenged. Many of the choices he made were not just moral, but strategic and trailblazing. In honor of MLK Day this upcoming Monday, this weekend’s recs will hopefully shine a slightly different light on Martin Luther King Jr. and his philosophy, politics, and activism.

If you have 12 minutes…and want to focus less on the past and more on the future, read this article in Counter Punch. Meyer, Jeffers, and Ragland place an emphasis on learning from organizers and activists of the past to combat racial hate and violence today, and they push back against the modern oppositional dichotomization of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If you have 13 minutes…and need to brush up on your Civil Rights history, watch this Crash Course video on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC.

If you have 17 minutes…and want to read one of his most famous works, read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” available at Falvey. This open letter was written by Dr. King after he was arrested during the nonviolent Birmingham protest campaign in 1963 and offers his guiding beliefs, arguments, and principles.

Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash

If you have 20 minutes…and only plan to read one thing from this list, read “MLK Now” by Brandon Terry, available online through Falvey. This piece is truly a standout work that revisits and offers a reconsideration of Dr. King and his work in today’s age and what we can and should learn from him.

If you have 26 minutes…and want to hear from Dr. King himself, watch this NBC interview with Dr. King. This interview really sheds light on Dr. King’s perspective on his Civil Rights work and where he saw the movement heading 11 months before his assassination.

If you have 30 minutes…and are interested in learning about King’s dedication to strategic nonviolence, read Karuna Mantena’s essay, “Showdown for Nonviolence: The Theory and Practice of Nonviolent Politics” by Karuna Mantena, available (in the 4th chapter of To Shape a New World) at Falvey.

If you have 2 hours and 8 minutes…and still haven’t seen it, watch Ava DuVernay’s Selma, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection. Although the film’s sole focus is not on Dr. King, it shows his efforts to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed and puts his courage and the violence with which he and other Civil Rights activists were met into perspective.

If you have 11 hours…and want to read essays exploring Dr. King and his work from a variety of different perspectives, read Shelby and Terry’s To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr, available in Falvey. This book has some great essays that look at King through diverse and interesting lenses.

Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Library.

By Jenna Renaud

Word of the Week: Abibliophobia 

(n) Someone who is afraid of running out of things to read 

I’ve definitely experienced this fear before, especially when getting ready to travel. I’ve always been anti-Kindle and pro-physical books, which has occasionally made it difficult to gauge how many books I need to bring with me when traveling, especially for long flights.  

The good thing about being on campus though is that there’s never a shortage of books in the Falvey collection. Stop in to pick up your next book before your abibliophobia kicks in.  

This Week at Falvey  

NOW–Wednesday, June 15

“That Fairyland of Ice:” Polar Exploration in Mind and Memory Exhibit | Falvey First Floor & Virtual | Free & Open to the Public 

Monday, April 4

Mindfulness Mondays | 1–1:30 p.m. | Virtual | https://villanova.zoom.us/j/98337578849 

Monday, April 4

Conversation with the 2022 Charles A. Heimbold, Jr. Chair, Emma Dabiri| 6–8 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner| Free & Open to the Public | Find more info here 

Wednesday, April 6  

2022 Falvey Forum Workshop Series: Getting Started with Building Digital Exhibits in Omeka | 12–1 p.m. | Virtual | Register Here 

Friday, April 8

Villanova Gaming Society Meeting | 2:30–4:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Public 

This Week in History 

April 4th, 1968 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated 

Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot standing on his second-story balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. King, age 39, was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when he was shot. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. 

The day before, on April 3, King gave his last sermon in Memphis, saying, “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop … And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

Today, movements such as Black Lives Matter continue to highlight racism, discrimination, and inequality experienced by Black people. 

The assassination was traced back to escaped convict James Earl Ray. Ray was arrested after being found in a London airport in early June. He was then sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Read more from History.com. 

Jenna Renaud is a graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a graduate student in the Communication Department.

By Ethan Shea

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on Jan. 15, 1929, yet we will celebrate the life of Dr. King on the seventeenth of the month this year. MLK Day does not fall on January 15 every year due to a law known as the “Uniform Monday Holiday Act” of 1968. This law moved several federal holidays to Mondays permanently in order to create more long weekends for federal workers, a move also meant to boost the travel industry. However, as you probably recognize, not all federal holidays fall on Mondays. Veteran’s Day, for example, was moved back to its traditional date of Nov. 11 by Congress in 1975.

Although Martin Luther King Jr. day was not yet a federal holiday when the “Uniform Monday Holiday Act” was first implemented, the law set the precedent that brought the holiday to be celebrated on the third Monday of January rather than January 15. According to current laws, the earliest the holiday will be celebrated is January 15, and the latest it can occur is January 21.

Compared to many holidays, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a relatively new one, as it did not become a federal holiday until 1983, but it is worth noting that ten years earlier, in 1973, Illinois became the first member of the union to declare MLK Day a state holiday. An increasing number of people wanted the United States to officially celebrate MLK Day at the national level, and eventually the holiday garnered enough support to be signed into law.

Leaving the logistics of the holiday aside for a moment, as fascinating as they are, no matter which date the third Monday of January happens to fall upon, it is important to recognize the immense social and cultural impact Dr. King had on not only the United States, but the entire world. King’s leadership throughout the Montgomery bus boycott, Birmingham civil rights campaign and 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, among countless other accomplishments, were critical to the strides toward equality King engendered during his lifetime. Acknowledging Dr. King’s achievements and working to continue his undying push for social justice are critical when recognizing this immeasurably important holiday.

If you are interested in learning more about Martin Luther King Jr. Day or the life of Dr. King himself, here are a few resources available at Falvey Memorial Library worth reading:

• Martin Luther King Jr. Day
• The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Martin Luther King Jr.: Civil Rights Leader

Ethan Shea is a first-year English Graduate Student and Graduate Assistant at Falvey Memorial Library.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Photo credited to Don Usner.

Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor will deliver the 2021 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Keynote Address on Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 5 p.m. Her lecture entitled, “The Radical King and the Quest to Change America,” will be available through the MLK Keynote Zoom link.

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2020 and National Book Award Finalist in 2019, Taylor is assistant professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author or editor of five books, and her three authored books are available in both print and electronic formats via Falvey Memorial Library: 

• ​Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (University of North Carolina  Press, 2019)
• How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (Haymarket Books, 2017)
• From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2016)

Following Taylor’s keynote address, Villanova University will host its annual Freedom School, a day of learning that celebrates and extends the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. Virtual sessions will be held throughout the day on Thursday, February 4, on a variety of topics. 

This year, Falvey represents at Freedom School via “Trusted News in a Hostile World: African American Newspapers and Magazines,” an interactive workshop on Thursday, Feb. 4, at 11:10 a.m., led by Jutta Seibert, Director of Research Services and Scholarly Engagement and Librarian for history, art history, and global interdisciplinary studies. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore news coverage of important events in African American history and will learn about several online databases for retrieving this content. For additional information on Seibert’s workshop and to access the full schedule of Freedom School events, visit the University’s Freedom School webpage.

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. 

Photo of Selma to Montgomery March from WikiCommons

By Susan Turkel

Lunch counter sit-ins, the Montgomery bus boycott, church and temple bombings, the murders of Emmett Till and Martin Luther King Jr., school integration, the March on Washington…. The events surrounding the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s forever changed American society.

Falvey Memorial Library offers 400 books on the Civil Rights Movement and hundreds more on race relations over the course of American history. Scholars continue to produce books, articles, and documentaries on this important era.

Research on history requires access to primary source materials. The Civil Rights Digital Library (CRDL) provides free access to a wide variety of primary source documents, photographic images, television news archives, and instructional materials held by hundreds of libraries, archives, and other organizations.

Funded by a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, CRDL began as a partnership between libraries, archives, and educational institutions. The list of organizations whose materials are accessible via CRDL is lengthy and impressive; it includes the Library of Congress, universities and law schools from all over the country, PBS, the FBI, city and state archives from all over the South, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. CRDL was unveiled to the public in 2008.

In addition to the primary source resources, CRDL offers a wide variety of teaching materials on the Civil Rights Movement, including learning modules, bibliographies, lesson plans, timelines, quizzes, and worksheets.

If you’d like to investigate additional library resources for studying the Civil Rights Movement, please visit the U.S. Black Freedom Movement course guide, developed by our history librarian Jutta Seibert.

Happy searching!

Susan Turkel, MA, MLS, is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. To this day the speech is a key piece of oration for the Civil Rights movement. Like every great orator, MLK had some prepared speech notes for his address—notes that actually did not include the famous “I have a dream” section (which was spun on the spot from the heart)—but he did not keep them. What happened to those notes, you ask?

They came into the possession of Villanova alum and College Basketball Hall of Famer George Raveling, class of 1960.

George Raveling, 10th on Villanova’s all-time rebounding list and the second ever black basketball player at Villanova, was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015. He was not only a talented college basketball player, but also went on to be an inspiring coach. He got his coaching start as a part-time assistant to Villanova coach Jack Kraft and later went on to coach full-time for Washington State, the University of Iowa, and the University of Southern California. Since retiring from coaching, Raveling has worked as Director for International Basketball for Nike.

So how did Raveling become the proud keeper of MLK’s speech notes? Raveling and his good friend Warren Wilson were only young men when they decided to go to Washington D.C. for the march in 1963. They were approached by one of the march’s organizers and asked to provide security—and they agreed. Raveling wound up just a few feet from MLK on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He was enthralled by MLK and his message of equality and civil rights. After the speech concluded and the crowd on the steps moved to disperse, he simply asked King, “Can I have that?”

And so they became his.

The notes have since been museum-treated and framed and are stored in a vault for safe-keeping. Raveling does not want to ever sell them, but is interested in their public display; he is currently in talks with various educational and museum groups.

You can read the full Sports Illustrated article on George Raveling and the MLK speech notes here. USA Today also covered the story. To learn more about Raveling’s induction to the College Basketball Hall of Fame, check out this article via VU Hoops.

This article by Michelle Callaghan, former graduate assistant on the Communication and Marketing team, was originally published January 15, 2018.