Ronnie Lott donates $1 million for MLK research institute

BY RAY DELGADO

The dream of creating a Martin Luther King Jr. Research Institute at the university came one step closer to reality with a $1 million challenge grant pledged from NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott and his nonprofit charity group, All Stars Helping Kids.

King made two visits to the campus in the 1960s and spoke about civil rights in Memorial Auditorium. A plaque in King's memory was dedicated at the auditorium May 1 to coincide with the university's first-ever minority alumni conference on diversity. Photo: Chuck Painter

The former San Francisco 49ers defensive back announced the five-year grant at an open house Saturday, May 1, for the university's Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project, a research and archive effort formed in 1985 to document King's life and the social movements he engaged in. The challenge grant will be spread over five years and will help endow the creation of a research institute dedicated to the civil rights pioneer, said Clayborne Carson, a professor of history and the director of the King Papers Project.

"For several years I've been talking about the idea of establishing a permanent institute, and I think it's rewarding to find in Ronnie Lott someone who very quickly recognized that this is something that had to happen," Carson said.

Lindsey Ford, executive director of Lott's 15-year-old foundation, said Lott made the contribution because he felt it was important to build the institute.

"We are committed to working with Dr. Carson to ensure that the King Institute at Stanford is a lasting legacy to the life and work of Dr. King, and that the organization be able to expand its efforts to teach children around the world King's messages of social justice and human rights," Ford said.

The project will soon embark on a major fundraising campaign to help raise the money needed for the challenge grant and for the overall endowment goal of at least $10 million for the institute, Carson said. He said several alumni who attended the open house were so moved by Lott's donation that they made pledges themselves.

Carson said he will meet with administration officials to gauge their support of the research institute after he returns from a sabbatical in late June. Initiated by the Atlanta-based King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, the King Papers Project's principal mission is to publish a definitive collection of King's most significant correspondence, sermons, speeches, published writings and unpublished manuscripts.

King made two visits to the campus in the 1960s and spoke about civil rights in Memorial Auditorium. A plaque in King's memory was dedicated at the auditorium May 1 to coincide with the university's first-ever minority alumni conference on diversity. The 12-by-15-inch bronze plaque was installed on a wall near the entrance to the auditorium and contains a quote King delivered during one of his visits.

"Somewhere we must come to see that social progress never rolls in on the wheels on inevitability," King said. "It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation."

Julie Lythcott-Haims, dean of freshmen and transfer students, spearheaded the plaque installation project after an alumnus suggested the idea at a February meeting of the Board of Trustees Task Force on Minority Alumni Relations. The plaque was put on a fast track to coincide with the conference and received universal support, Lythcott-Haims said.

"I have to say that to a person, there was great enthusiasm about the project," Lythcott-Haims said. "It was never a question of whether we should, it was about what would be most suitable."