RADFORD – L. Douglas Wilder, the grandson of slaves who rose to become governor of Virginia, told a rapt Radford University on Thursday that this week’s inauguration of President Barack Obama demands “the need for new dreams.”

 “This is a new day in America, one that has been a long time in coming, yet somehow predestined,” Wilder told the RU community. “Thomas Jefferson’s eloquent words that ‘all men are created equal,’ though unmatched by deeds, now carry a new meaning for all Americans.”

(Please see Photo Slide Show.)

Wilder delivered the keynote address at Radford University’s commemoration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., in a ceremony filled with symbolism. The nation’s first African-American governor, Wilder spoke inside RU’s Covington Center for Visual and Performing Arts – named for Douglas Covington, the first African-American president of RU who retired in 2005 – just two days after the inauguration of the nation’s first African-American president.

“My pride in Obama’s accomplishment is matched only by what I felt on the night of my election as Virginia’s 66th governor,” Wilder said. “We both have benefitted from the countless sacrifices and efforts of those who, decades and centuries past, had given their all. We stand on their shoulders.”

RU President Penelope W. Kyle welcomed the assembly by recollecting this week’s inauguration. “It is hard to celebrate the life and death of Martin Luther King Jr. without tears in our eyes.”

Student Government Association President Matt Williams followed by noting the progress America has made from his great-grandparents’ era when only white men could vote and run for office. “And here I am, growing up in a time when the first presidential election in which I am old enough to vote, my choices are on one ticket a black man for president and on the other ticket a white woman for vice-president.”

Thursday’s celebration of King’s life also featured a performance by Roanoke’s William Fleming High School Choir and tributes by the RU-Virginia Tech chapters of Alpha Phi Alpha and Omega Psi Phi. King was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha and Wilder is a lifelong member of Omega Psi Phi. A candlelight march concluded the ceremony.

The commemoration was sponsored by the Office of Multicultural and International Student Services, National Panhellenic Council, Black Student Awareness Club, the Dean of Students Office, Student Government Association, Men of Standards, Chi Upsilon Sigma, the RU student chapter of the NAACP, Black Awareness Programming, and Club Programming.