Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Society of African-American Men members Zachary Gillish, a second-year mechanical engineering technology student, and first-year biomedical engineering student Malachi Wilson hand out pencils and Martin Luther King Day masks on the campus of Michigan Technological University Monday.

HOUGHTON — In a normal year, university activities for Martin Luther King Day might include a banquet, or reading to elementary students.

Though the methods changed because of COVID-19, students still honored him Monday.

At Michigan Technological University, students manned booths giving away MTU MLK Day reusable masks and other supplies. People could also scan a QR code directing them to a Google Form to log steps for MTU’s team in the Million Steps for Martin march. The program, created by Anderson University in Indiana, invites people to participate in a virtual march for justice. (It is an pandemic-era version of Anderson’s traditional march across its Eighth Street bridge, recalling King’s march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama.)

Finlandia Univesity was slated to perform a scaled-down day of service with the men’s hockey team cutting firewood for Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly. Finlandia will also host a racial with educator and activist Jen Fry from 5:45-7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Handing out masks and pencils in front of the Tech library were two members of Tech’s chapter of Society of African-American Men: first-year biomedical engineering student Malachi Wilson and second-year mechanical engineering technology student Zachary Gillish.

Wilson’s hometown has held marches for MLK Day, while his family has also celebrated by explaining King’s legacy to people and watching movies about civil rights. Continuing to remember King is important because many of the things happening in King’s era still go on today, he said.

“I think everyone should be able to see it from other people’s perspectives, instead of just their own,” he said. “I think standing out here in the cold handing out masks and stuff to help with homework or defeating COVID is just something to show how we still care and we’re still looking.”

Response had been good, leading to a lot of productive conversations, Wilson said.

“We’ve talked to a few older people especially about changes that are coming, have been coming for a long time and are due to come,” he said.