Clayborne Carson, Director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute and professor of history at Stanford University received the second Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize for 2011 and spoke about his understanding of Dr. King as a person and the messages he conveyed on Feb 14.

Established by former Brandeis sociology professor Joseph B. Gittler, a $25,000 prize and a medal are annually awarded to recognize two selected persons' scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic or religious relations. In addition to Prof. Carson, Emory University's Professor Emerita Frances Smith Foster, a Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Women's Studies, was presented with the prize during the 2011 fall semester.

Provost Steve Goldstein '78 and Prof. Theodore Johnson (Heller) introduced Carson and presented him with the medal. Johnson proclaimed, "Brandeis is a fitting place to honor an MLK scholar. Brandeis and MLK share a common goal of spreading social justice."

Carson concurred, "I think that there's a certain feeling of being at home here [at Brandeis]." He announced that the prize money would be going to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute to continue to keep King's ideas alive.

Carson has edited and compiled 13 books of Dr. King's sermons, speeches and writings. He attended the 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech and was personally asked by Coretta Scott King to edit the papers of her deceased husband. "I'm the messenger [for Dr. King]," said Carson.

Carson wrote a play about the civil rights movement, which has been performed on stages all over the world.

He spoke about the power of watching the Birmingham struggle being performed by Chinese actors on a stage less than two miles away from Tiananmen Square, and by Palestinian actors in the midst of the conflict-ridden Middle East.

Carson said, "It's a privilege to take this connection in so many directions. This has helped me to understand who this person [MLK] was."

Taking part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, watching the "I Have a Dream" speech and hitchhiking across the country to return home had a profound effect on a 19-year-old Carson. He called it "the beginning of a great adventure" and confessed, "I could not have imagined being asked to edit the papers of that person who I had seen at a distance." While Carson was obtaining his degree at University of California, Los Angeles, John Hope Franklin introduced him to Coretta Scott King.

He then started to edit King's speeches and writings and gained a much deeper understanding of King after reading his sermons. "That was the heart of who he was," he said. Carson asserted that he is religious, but skeptical of dogmatic preaching that diverts from what he considers to be true religion. Religion, he said, "is the search, not the answer. What is our obligation to humanity?"

Carson emphasized the importance of King's image to oppressed peoples all over the world. King brought to them "the vision that they are not alone in their struggles," said Carson. 

In the Middle East and other regions of political contention, the civil rights movement resonates with people currently performing his play.

Carson quoted King directly: "There is explicit linking of the African-American civil rights struggle to the world struggle."

Talya Kahan '12 remarked after the lecture, "I think he's brilliant, I think he is probably the leading scholar of Dr. King, and to have him here is very representative of Brandeis."