REFLEXIONES

January 19, 2026

MLK @ UCLA

APRIL 27, 1965, WAS A SUNNY AND WARM DAY. Lilou was getting ready to join the world in two weeks and we were waiting for her. Not ready, but waiting. Mamita and Mémé would be arriving in a few days. I was attending my courses at UCLA. There was a lot of expectation on campus that morning. The students were excited, nervous and eager to get on with their classes because an invitation to attend a speech at the bottom of Janss Steps had been extended. The location was well known to all students. North of the Student Union building on Westwood Ave were two buildings : the Men’s and the Women’s Gym. A large park between the buildings extended West towards the UCLA Quadrangle, reached via the large steps named in honor of the construction company that had built the original UCLA campus. As the students started gathering there at 11 in the morning, the buzz on campus was terrific.

We were all waiting for the speaker scheduled that day: Dr. Martin Luther King.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT HAD BEEN MADE A FEW DAYS BEFORE. ASUCLA, the University Students Organization had created a Speakers Program that invited distinguished individuals, well known for their ideas and their stories of success, to campus to the address the UCLA community. The invitation to Dr. King had been extended with great discretion and hard negotiation but UCLA was a venue that suited Dr. King perfectly as he continued his unwavering quest after the Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Johnson a few months before.

PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON HAD VISITED UCLA THE PREVIOUS YEAR, on February 21, 1964 and hosted the Mexican president Adolfo López Mateos. For me that had been an extraordinary event. I was a sophomore at the University. When I found out that the Mexican president was visiting the campus I went to the Press Office and offered my services as an interpreter. In the Spring of 1962, a group of African economists on a tour of Mexico sponsored by the United Nations had paid a visit to the president in the National Palace. The UN office in Mexico had hired me to be the interpreter during this official visit and I had met President López Mateos and had a brief conversation with him. The Press office at UCLA arranged for me to join other students in the welcoming committee since the interpreters for the presidents were already part of their entourage. Later on during the ceremony where the two presidents spoke I was chosen to be the commentator for KCLA, the University’s student run radio station. It was a momentous ceremony and a great event for me. .

Marine helicopters bearing the presidents landed on the athletic field, just to the right, on the photo below, while an audience of 34,000, sitting in a temporary stadium constructed nearby, eagerly awaited them.

In the background, the campus milestone, the “Big C,” normally blue in color, was painted a patriotic red, white and blue, while Sproul Hall, my former dorm, was draped in the American colors on one side and the green, white and red colors of the Mexican flag on the other. In the center, a giant greeting “UCLA Welcomes Presidents” was there for all to see.

Johnson and López Mateos had come to UCLA as part of the State Visit to be keynote speakers at the 96th Charter Day ceremony, an anniversary celebration of the University of California’s founding in 1868. At the end of the ceremony, both Heads of State were awarded honorary doctorates.

Johnson, the first American president to speak at UCLA while in office, reaffirmed the solidarity between the United States and Mexico, and noted primarily the dangers of the times confirming foreign-policy aims in Vietnam, Cuba, Panama and Cyprus.(We know how all that ended). Johnson concluded his remarks encouraging the audience to advance, with brave hearts, with the task of building the citadels of peace, in a world set free from fear.

López Mateos emphasized the role of the university and its members in the world-at-large, saying that knowledge and freedom cannot be kept apart. University students have the power to make a difference in society, he said. From these classrooms many young people, with talent and dedication, will apply their best efforts to contribute to the operation of law as the basis for order, peace, progress and fraternity. Or words to that effect.

And here we are, 60 years later, still trying to believe the same messages.

ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY EVENT WAS HAPPENING on campus a year after the presidential visits: Dr. Maritn Luther King was going to speak to us.

The country was in upheaval. The Freedom Riders, individuals of all origins, who believed in the Civil Rights movement, were riding integrated buses, illegal in the South, risking arrest and violent encounters to fight against racial discrimination. There were marches around the country in demonstration of the beliefs that citizens held that racial discrimination was not only illegal but ethically wrong. Police were attacking demonstrators with rabid dogs, high pressure water cannons, batons and kicks before throwing them in jail. Children were escorted, protected by the National Guard, to attend school.

Unlike today, the enforcement authorities were at least not shooting and killing the demonstrators.

DR. KING WAS NOT A PRESIDENT, and he had not yet achieved the universal admiration that he elicited in the next years, although he had received the Nobel Peace Prize the year before. Still, More than 5000 students and faculty gathered to hear him speak about racial injustice and the evils of segregation.

UNDER HEAVY GUARD AND THE GAZE OF TELEVISION CAMERAS he addressed the UCLA community and the country on the need for racial integration, increased educational opportunity and guaranteed voting rights. The hour-long speech came just one month after his successful march from Selma to the Alabama capital of Montgomery, and outlined both the accomplishments and setbacks of the civil rights movement.

He also appealed to students, specifically recruiting them for a summer program that would work to double the number of blacks registered to vote in the South. The crowd filled the park and stretched up into the hills along Janss Steps and remained intent as he spoke, interrupting only with an occasional thundering ovation

In his well know oratorial rhythm and cadences he said that it may be true that you can’t legislate integration, but you can legislate desegregation; it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated; it may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless; it may be true that “the law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me.”

The audience was silent and deeply moved as well as raucous and wildly enthusiastic.

Dr. King warned that while progress had been made, there was no time for complacency: “If democracy is to live, segregation must die.” Most had a lump in their throats. Many were moved to tears. We all slowly left the park, excited but deep in thought, viscerally moved by the magnetic pull of such a great leader and admired icon, touched forever by his presence, courage, thoughts and words..

THREE YEARS LATER ALMOST TO THE DAY of his appearance at UCLA, I was overwhelmed and profoundly sad when, back in Mexico, I learned that Martin Luther King had been assassinated, leaving as legacy his pivotal role in the American civil rights movement, using nonviolent civil disobedience to champion racial equality, economic justice, and international peace and moving millions towards understanding, respect and tolerance. His efforts directly led to the landmark legislation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We will always have the eternal memory of the way he touched the minds and hearts of so many of us.

Needless to say, that speech left a profound impression on me. So did my time at UCLA, which turned out to have been extraordinarily influential in my life in many areas including education, family, culture, structure, health, beliefs, humanities, ethics, work, method, relations, aspirations, introspection, politics, science, technology, art and whatever achievements family and friends have all too generously attributed to me.

I was very lucky to be at UCLA at that time and forever grateful to my parents for their determination to support me in my dreams.

THE 60S SHOOK THE NATION: a war in Vietnam; political assassinations on American soil; a fight across the country for civil rights; and huge strides in science, sending men into space and the first words across the internet. It was also a time when UCLA students refused to accept the status quo, staging protests and sit-ins, blazing a path in search of a more just and equitable world. The turmoil would bring about change, as students continued pressing forward.

Over the events of the decade, both celebratory and challenging, UCLA found a voice for justice, and began to create a community where diverse voices were respected and protected. Amid the politics and changing times; the campus continued to grow. New buildings brought people together; athletic teams scored major victories; opportunities arose to recognize diverse points of view; and in a room in Boelter Hall, professors took a first step towards changing the world. That was my world then.

Dr. King’s presence, at UCLA, that morning of April 27, 1965 is forever embedded in my mind.

And twelve days later, at UCLA, with lots, lots of help from Lili, our beloved Lilou was born!