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The Union event took place just 24 hours after a series of tornadoes shook the West Tennessee region, on what Frist termed "a difficult day for many Tennesseans." As a result, the Monday evening program became not only a celebration of King but also a community prayer service for the storm-torn city.

U.S.Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Union President David S. Dockery and the Rev. Lawrence Ragland visit while listening to the Jackson One Voice Choir. Ragland graduated from Union in 1987 and led a prayer during the worship service.

In his comments, Frist described his day of activities surveying area damage with Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist and other officials. He expressed appreciation for hundreds of volunteers who are helping local families and stressed that such aid was in the best spirit of Dr. King's legacy of service.

"We face devastation," the senator asserted, "but out of that devastation can come hope and great purpose for tomorrow." Union President David S. Dockery told several hundred attendees that "reconciliation is the theme of the vision of Martin Luther King Jr." Stressing the need for Christians to reach across racial barriers, Dockery insisted, "Three decades after King's death, we treasure his legacy and take up his challenge to seek the reconciliation of God's people."

The Union-sponsored program, entitled "Reconciled Together," grew out of Dockery's participation last year in a gathering at the Carter Center in Atlanta. At the invitation of former President Jimmy Carter, six white presidents of Christian colleges met with six presidents of historically black colleges to discuss ways higher education to aid in the task of racial reconciliation. One of the ideas discussed, Dockery explains, was the need for white Christians to take seriously the significance of the King holiday for the African-American community.

"The black college presidents stressed to us that we should celebrate King's memory not by taking the day off but through some type of community service or worship event," Dockery says. "This community worship service was a culmination of that concern, and will be accompanied by the efforts of many Union faculty, staff and students who are serving as disaster volunteers or who are contributing much-needed supplies for the relief effort."   Laurice Lanier performed six songs at the community worship service. Lanier is a native of Jackson and student at the Julliard School in New York City.

The service also featured the Jackson One Voice Choir, an inter-racial musical group, and vocalist Laurice Lanier, a Jackson native now studying at Juilliard School of Music in New York City. Jackson Mayor Charles Farmer, Madison County Sheriff David Woolfork and Jackson State Community College President Charlie Roberts Jr. were originally scheduled to participate in the program, but were forced to cancel due to emergency management duties in the aftermath of the Sunday evening tornadoes.