Hundreds of people gathered at Stanford University on Tuesday to mark the opening of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute’s new location in the university’s Main Quad. The event included a panel discussion about Dr. King’s legacy and the importance of preserving his writings for future generations.
The institute, which was previously housed in Cypress Hall, has moved to Building 370, a central spot on campus designed to be accessible for scholars and visitors. Its collection includes digitized versions of King’s correspondences, sermons, speeches, published works, and unpublished manuscripts. These materials will be available to the public through a searchable online database made possible by a donation from Stanford alumnus and Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel and his family.
Stanford President Jonathan Levin spoke at Memorial Church during the celebration. “Stanford’s mission is the preservation and dissemination and the application of knowledge, and the King Institute does all of those things in a very powerful way,” said Levin.
An estimated 500 to 600 members of both the campus community and general public attended the event. The panel featured Martin Luther King III; Arndrea Waters King; Stanford student Marina Limon; and Spiegel. Lerone Martin, director of the institute and professor at Stanford, moderated.
Afterward, attendees toured the institute’s new facilities. The move represents another step in a history that began when Coretta Scott King invited Clayborne Carson in 1985 to edit her late husband’s papers—a project that later became known as the King Papers Project. In 2005, with support from football player Ronnie Lott, Carson founded what would become today’s institute.
During the discussion, Martin Luther King III emphasized his father’s vision for social justice: “We all have free will, and that’s part of what makes this a great nation, which can and must become a greater nation.” He also noted how his father’s words are sometimes misused: “We are literally at a point where the words of Martin Luther King Jr. … have been used to stand for exactly the opposite of everything that he stood and worked and died for,” said Arndrea Waters King. She described the institute as providing “a framework, not for idolizing, but for challenging us and inspiring us to live up to the ideals of Martin Luther King Jr. in our everyday lives.”
King III also reflected on lesser-known aspects of his father: “…that the vision that he had was inclusive for everyone… And if we could use that model… we really could transform the world for all humankind.” Waters King added that Coretta Scott King played an important role as both mentor and activist: “When he met Coretta Scott King, he wasn’t just meeting a woman, he met his match.”
Stanford students have contributed over time through work on projects such as editing King’s papers. President Levin recalled hearing from former students about their meaningful experiences working with these archives while at Stanford.
Marina Limon shared how her involvement changed her perspective: “King’s writing completely transformed the way that I interacted with history and my understanding of King’s legacy.”
Evan Spiegel commented on why supporting this work matters: “Placing the institute in the center of campus ensures that as Stanford students take all their incredible ambition… they meet the world with love… [and] uphold founding values.”
President Levin closed by referencing Dr. King’s sermon delivered at Stanford in 1967: progress depends not simply on time passing but on active effort—an idea reflected in making King’s work more accessible through this new facility.
Lerone Martin serves as director within Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences.
