HOUGHTON — At the end of Michigan Technological University’s interfaith prayer vigil honoring Martin Luther King, Wallace Southerland challenged those in attendance to put King’s values into practice year-round.

Southerland harkened back to a February 1968 King speech on the “drum major instinct.” That can be perceived as bragging, or showing off. But King inverted that idea, using it as a way to demonstrate that “anyone can be great.”

“Everyone in this room ought to want to be the first to recognize, to call out racism, sexism, ableism, and every other kind of an ism, that divides us as a community,” said Southerland, Tech’s vice president for student affairs and dean of students. “Everyone in this room should want to be a drum major to call out economic injustice, social injustice, educational injustice, political injustice. So as we leave here, and march and go in our different spaces, on campus, in our community, in our homes and places of worship, and in our educational institutions, ask yourselves, how can I, like Dr. King, be a drum major.”

The vigil and following peace march were part of Tech’s 34th annual celebration of Martin Luther King Day.

At Monday’s vigil, members of several religions read from King’s work and approached him from the perspective of their faiths: Baptist, Jewish, Buddhist and Evangelical Lutheran.

Darnishia Morris, Pavlis Educator and manager of global engagement programs at Tech, drew parallels between King and the apostle Paul, who both wrote letters to their constituents while in prison.

A King sermon in 1957 picked up on the connection, taking the form of a fictionalized letter from Paul to American Christians.

King noted the disparity between America’s scientific progress and its lagging ethical and spiritual development. He had also spoken on those themes at an earlier sermon in 1954, delivered at the historic Second Baptist Church in Morris’ hometown of Detroit. King bemoaned the culture’s prevailing attitude of “survival of the slickest” and the adoption of an 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not get caught.”

“That attitude is destroying the soul of our culture,” King said. “It is destroying our nation. The thing that we need in the world today is a group of men and women who will stand up for right and be opposed to wrong, wherever it is.”

David Holden, president of Temple Jacob in Hancock, looked to the governance of ancient Israel, split between the king, the priesthood and the prophet. Although King was a reverend, Holden situated him within the same prophet tradition as Moses: serving God through word, deriving power not from his position of authority but from righteous conduct and personal authority.

“The Jewish fascination with Dr. King sees his role in the ongoing battle for civil rights in this country as that of a prophet,” he said. “We hear in his words the critique of society legitimated as prophecy in this sense, words that not only castigate out woeful shortcomings, but inspire tikkun olam — the world healed and made whole again.”

After Monday’s vigil, marchers carried placards bearing eight principles Tech is emphasizing in 2023: Kindness, civility, respect, listening, belonging, community, caring and family.

Several members of the Delta Upsilon fraternity attended Monday’s vigil and march. The fraternity’s motto translates to “Justice, our foundation,” said Cole Bennett, a fourth-year audio production and technology major. King is someone they could all agree was a champion of justice, he said.

Bennett enjoyed hearing excerpts from King’s writings, finding particular inspiration in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

“Although we come from different backgrounds, the fact that we can all come together and give our highest regards to one of the most influential leaders our country has seen is an amazing experience to have,” he said.

Bennett said he and the fraternity would be holding up King’s values throughout the year.

“We choose to make peace with everyone wherever we can just by existing and trying to serve as positive role models on campus as well as make friends with so many people,” he said. “I think we can only get better from there.”

Earlier Monday, Tech students visited local schools to talk to students about King’s life and legacy.

Monday night, Tech was scheduled to host its annual MLK Day banquet. The keynote speaker is Tech alum Tayloria Adams, assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of California at Irvine. In 2014, she became the first Black woman to obtain a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Tech.