SC Commencement News Release (June 14, 1964)

This is a press release from Springfield College’s Office of Public Information. It was created for release on or after Sunday, June 14, 1964—the date of that year’s commencement exercises. The press release describes the achievements of that year’s honorary degree recipients: Joseph Albert Brunton, Jr., P. Matthew Joseph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Carl David Smith, and Mary Elizabeth Switzer.In 1964, Springfield College shared a moment in history often overlooked by historians with honorary degree recipient and commencement speaker Martin Luther King Jr. Despite significant pressure from prominent shareholders and benefactors of the College to not invite Martin Luther King to speak at Commencement, college President Glenn A. Olds, a minister and conscientious objector during World War II, refused to waver. When King was arrested the day before, Olds contacted law enforcement officials, telling them that if they continued to hold King, school officials would fly down to tape the commencement address, leaving St. Augustine to deal with the attendant publicity. Whether or not his intervention played a role, King was released on a nine hundred dollar bond Saturday afternoon. Met at the airport by Springfield College Economics Professor Robert Randolph, later the first black president of the Massachusetts State College System at Westfield State, King toured the campus, gave a press conference, and shared a brief luncheon with faculty and administration. On the day of commencement, Black Muslim protestors who felt King was too conciliatory and bomb-sniffing dogs greeted the graduating class