On Friday, January 13th, Reinhardt University students visited the Martin Luther King (MLK) Center in celebration of MLK Day. The trip was led and organized by Joshua Garner, the Director of Spiritual Life, Leadership and Service at Reinhardt. Because of Garner’s strong admiration for Dr. Martin Luther King, he wanted to provide an opportunity for the University’s student affairs leaders to better understand the cause Dr. King was fighting for.
The visit allowed the student leaders to learn about the influence young adults had in the civil rights movement. Many were unaware how Dr. King challenged and recruited young adults around their current age to help make a change.
“They learned about the civil rights movement in general. Their grandparents are now the ages of many of these civil rights movement leaders, so that was eye-opening for them to see how recent all of this was. They have heard of Dr. King, but I don’t think they fully grasped his legacy. Visiting the center made it more relevant and eye-opening for them.”
Garner followed up the celebration by partaking in and organizing an MLK Day of Service, which took place in the Hill Freeman Library on Monday, January 16. During the event, Garner along with Reinhardt faculty and students, packaged 1,000 care bags for teachers and nurses in Waleska and the surrounding areas. He plans to make both the MLK Center trip and the MLK Day of Service a joint annual tradition to honor Dr. King’s legacy of selfless service.
