Civil Rights Leader Recalls Martin Luther King, Jr., during UGA Celebration

She didn't praise the for the increase in minority student enrollment in recent years. She didn't mention the many study abroad programs that introduce students to a multitude of cultures. She didn't peep about the recruitment of minority faculty.

That wasn't in store at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Freedom Breakfast Friday morning, held at UGA and  sponsored by the university, the Clarke County School District, the Unified Government of Athens Clarke County and some corporate sponsors.

Instead, keynote speaker Billy Aaron said she never expected to be speaking at the University of Georgia, where a diverse crowd of more than 600 people gathered to celebration King's legacy.

"Your reputation precedes you," said Aaron, who has been married to Hank Aaron since 1973.

Aaron said her first husband, Atlanta civil rights leader, minister and Morehouse teacher Dr. Samuel Williams, helped desegregate the university, and she herself knew both Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, the first African American undergraduate students at UGA. The couple was also friends with Martin Luther King, Jr., and Coretta Scott King.

She told a gripping story about the night of April 4, 1968. Samuel Wiiliams and she were at home, finishing supper and planning to go to different evening activities, when they heard on NBC's nightly news program, the Huntley-Brinkley Report, that King had been shot.

They were stunned and shocked. At Samuel's suggestion, they drove to the King house. Inside were the four King children, with Coretta in her bedroom, packing to fly to Memphis. With a few others, Billye headed to the Atlanta airport, where Mayor Ivan Allen signaled with a shake of his head that King was dead. Billye Aaron drove in silence with Coretta King back to her house.

She said she felt such enormous pain, "it was hard to breathe." She sat in a chair, sobbing, and felt "as if the world had come to an end."

But the world didn't end. King's life lit a flame, and his ideas and ideals will ignite others, Aaron said. "His dream is very much alive, his work goes on, and the dream shall never die."

Honored at the event were three community members whose lives and work embody King's ideals. Receiving the President's Fulfilling the Dream Award were Corey Johnson, an associate professor in the College of Education; Franklin College of Arts and Sciences graduate student Roberta Gardner; and community volunteer extraordinaire Attawa Childres, a UGA retiree.