King visited Bucknell University in 1958

Aug. 26—LEWISBURG — Bucknell University was the site for a lesser-known speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1958.

On April 23, 1958, King gave the campus address entitled "Three Dimensions of a Complete Life," during a chapel ceremony at the Davis Gym Annex in what is known as the Elaine Langone Center.

It's an area at the rear of the gymnasium now occupied by offices, where chapel services were held at the time.

King was still five years away from his famous 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech.

"It was in late April 1958, and I didn't know who would be speaking, nor did I recognize the speaker when he was introduced," Merrett R. Stierheim, Class of 1958, wrote in a piece published on Bucknell University's website. "He began his comments in a low voice that I found myself straining to hear. But he had what seemed to be a magnetism about him that drew his audience to listen intently to his words. The intensity of his rhetoric increased gradually. Before he finished, he was truly oratorical — with a booming voice that seemed to rattle the chapel rafters. I was completely awestruck, and certainly not alone."

In another piece published on Bucknell's website, Carolyn Schaaf Horter, class of 1961, recalled that "King preached about the breadth, length, height and depth of life. He was a powerful speaker. I was impressed and for some reason those words from his speech have stuck in my mind. It was a challenge then to any student, to 'stretch' ourselves like that and it is an even more challenging text today."

King concluded his speech by saying that we must love the self to gain length, but we must not stop there. We should "love thy neighbor as thyself" to gain breadth. The fulfillment of a complete life is an upward reach to God achieved by loving "the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, soul and mind. Every life must have its sky," according to Bucknell.

After chapel, King ate lunch with about 20 faculty members and administrators in an upstairs room at Cooley Hall, according to Bucknell.

Mark Ebersole, a professor of religion who was chaplain of the university in 1958 brought King to the campus. Ebersole and King both studied at Crozer Theological Seminary near Philadelphia, though not at the same time, and were co-leaders of a Week of Prayer event at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Va., Feb. 24 — March 1, 1957. Their meeting in Virginia led directly to King's visit to Bucknell, according to Bucknell.

A plaque was unveiled on the 65th anniversary of the speech earlier this year. It was installed on the wall outside the Davis Gym on April 23.

On the plaque is one of King's quotes from his speech that day: "Somehow we are tied in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, where what affects one directly affects all indirectly."

It was followed by a tribute to the late Carmen Gillespie, professor of English and founding director of Bucknell's Griot Institute for the Study of Black Lives & Cultures, at the Edward Brawley Bust outside of Vaughan Literature Building. Gillespie was instrumental in the development of the MLK Week commemoration at Bucknell during her tenure.

No photos are available of Dr. King's appearance at Bucknell.