Stanford Report, January 21, 2004

BY BARBARA PALMER

When Caltrain’s standing-room-only "Freedom Train" rolled along the tracks from San Jose to San Francisco on Martin Luther King Day, among those on board were students and staff from the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project. Spreading out through the train cars with a rollicking, interactive lesson about King’s life, volunteers quizzed the mostly school-age travelers about King and events surrounding desegregation.

KATRINA LOGAN, who graduated last June with a degree in African American studies and who worked as a researcher in the Project offices, said one of the most important things she learned during her research is that there is more to the movement than King -- for instance, people like Pauli Murray, a pioneering civil rights lawyer and activist who was arrested for protesting segregated seating on interstate buses in the 1940s. "She was before her time," said Logan. Events celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. will continue this month with faculty and staff panels, lectures and the exhibit "Gandhi, King, Ikeda: A Legacy of Building Peace," highlighting the work of King, Mohandas Gandhi and the Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda, on display in the second-floor lobby at Tresidder Union. A full schedule of events commemorating King can be found at www.stanford.edu/dept/BCSC/mlk.html.

When about 100 faculty, staff and community members crowded into the Round Room behind Memorial Church during Tuesday’s lunch hour to discuss the blockbuster murder mystery The Da Vinci Code with KIRSTI COPELAND, a Ph.D. in early Christianity, participants talked about the theology and history behind the book’s fictional plot twists, as well as the meaning of the reading public’s immense appetite for the book. "It’s fun," said Copeland, adding that it was neat how much interest the book has generated in early Christian history. For reliable scholarship however, Copeland recommended the audience go listen to religious historian ELAINE PAGELS, who is lecturing here next week.

PATIENCE YOUNG, curator for education at the Cantor Arts Center, will lead staff on a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum Thursday, Jan. 22. Young will introduce tour participants to research collections, opportunities for coursework and independent study, the range of changing exhibitions and the museum’s wide variety of programs. All are welcome to participate. Meet in the lobby of the arts center at 12:10 p.m.

Write to Barbara Palmer at barbara.palmer@stanford.edu or mail code 2245 or call her at 724--6184.

Barbara Palmer