Keeping Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream alive with stories, art

North Bryan Baptist Church pastor Sam Hill said passing down stories about Martin Luther King Jr. is key to keeping alive the dream that the civil rights leader had for everyone.

"I think that there's danger of relaxing to the point where we forget about what's important," said Hill, whose church is off North Earl Rudder Freeway.

"There's a danger in moving into the future and failing to bring with you the things that were necessary and important to the past. There's a danger in not passing on the story and therefore, it falls out of our history, and we lose something very precious."

Stories focusing on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. surely will be told this week while Americans pay tribute to the leader on what would have been is his 83rd birthday.

Many will recall his renowned I Have A Dream speech delivered in 1963 in Washington, D.C., while others may focus on his dedication to his faith or his actions working toward civil rights, or any of his many accomplishments, including receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

Hill said too many people wanting to honor King don't follow through with his plan to implement the dream while strengthening faith to overcome obstacles.

"As inspirational as he was, he was working out of the same book we should be working out of," the 56-year-old said.

Just as important, Hill said, is for older generations to inspire the youth through telling stories of King's life.

King accomplished so much in his 39 years and that's a truth that prompts Hill to ask himself: "What have I been doing with my time?"

Hill is among many leaders in the Brazos Valley community who say they're attempting to keep King's vision in front of each generation.

Robert J. Schiffhauer, a Texas A&M architecture associate professor who grew up in the civil rights era, said he always wanted to honor those who fought for others, but wasn't sure how until he met Susan Kouyomijian Gordone. Her husband, Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Charles Gordone, died of cancer in 1995. Conversations with Gordone's widow prompted Schiffauer -- who was longing to take a closer look at all the people who fought for the rights of African-Americans -- to show his appreciate through his art.

"I always had kind of a place in my heart for all those people and wanted to do something, perhaps not actively like they were doing, but something to commemorate what they were doing," he said, adding that honoring Gordone's efforts was a big part of his motivation. Gordone was brought to Texas A&M in 1987 to advance racial diversity in the arts at the predominantly white campus.

Schiffhauer has created about 75 pieces of art for an upcoming show on the Texas A&M campus. A portrait series called "Torchbearers," which features prominent figures in African-American history -- including John Coltrane, Harriet Beecher Stowe and, of course, Gordone and King -- will be part of the show.

His collection of mixed art mediums, including drawings, paintings, sculpture and printmaking, has been shown at the Brazos Valley African-American Museum in Bryan and other sites.

"There's a lot of people who are just well known for their civil rights activity and others who are known as great musicians and dancers," he said in describing his subjects.

Among the dozen or so portraits he's done of King are striking images of him in color and acrylic paintings.

They can be viewed starting in February at the Wright Gallery, which is on the second floor of the College of Architecture's Langford-A building on the A&M campus.

To read Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous speech, go online to www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm.