The men of the Talented Tenth, Theta Chi, Kappa Alpha Order, and Omega Delta Phi collaborated to host Dreams Day on Monday, January 18, in honor of Martin Luther King Day. The event started and ended at the gazebo near Pritchett field with live DJs and free food.
“I think what [made] it monumental was having multiple demographic areas from our campus actually involved with the event,” Talented Tenth President Najee Jenkins said.
This was the third year of the Dreams Day event, but the first year the hosts decided to incorporate a group march. The march began at the gazebo, went through Sam Houston Avenue and the museum area and then back to the gazebo.
“We feel like the march this year is the most monumental piece of the event in remembrance of the march on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Jenkins said. “Hopefully people take that in good light and they want to participate next year.”
Chants were led throughout the march for the marchers to repeat. One chant was “One people, one dream, we are the dream.”
“This march helps unify us and kind of relate back to the march MLK had in Washington,” Kappa Alpha Vice President Addison Arnold said. “In previous years, it’s just kind of been towards one demographic and we just wanted to reach out to all demographics at this school.”
This year’s march was also the first to include other university organizations. The organizations worked together to promote the event and provided food and entertainment.
“When we heard about this event, we really just jumped on it,” Theta Chi President Lawrence Jones said. “We really wanted to be a part of it, and we’re glad we were able to make it happen.”
Dreams Day was open to the public so anyone could attend. There were games provided like washers and free hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken.
“I found out about the march through Kappa Alpha’s Instagram and we all had a lot of fun,” freshman Brittany Gray-Fitzgerald said. “We can all be unified together, and that’s what Martin Luther King dreamed of.”
After the march, Jenkins and Lady Dubois 2015 Angelique Price spoke to the crowd about the importance of Martin Luther King and the Dreams Day event.
“This is our fight as a people to come together, to unify, and be better than the generations that came before us and continue to make these monumental steps for change,” Price said in her speech.
The Dreams Day participants were invited to hang out around the Gazebo until 5:00. It was encouraged that they reach outside of their comfort zones and mingle with people from other backgrounds.
“Sam Houston is slightly segregated at times, not necessarily by racism, but we all have our same groups,” Jones said. “We just wanted one big event where we could all get together and hang out.”
The groups in charge of Dreams Day plan for the march to become an annual event. This year provided more cultural diversity of the participants, and it is their goal to continue this.
“I came last year and it was mainly just people who knew that one organization,” senior Omega Delta Phi member Christian Morales said. “This year we had different organizations so everybody brought their own people and mingled with someone they might not have talked to before. The main thing that I saw was every culture, every ethnicity, every background marching for one cause.”