On Feb. 11, Ithaca College hosted its annual Martin Luther King Jr. keynote address as part of the campus wide MLK Celebration Week during Black History Month. The 2026 guest speaker was Cecil J. Williams, a South Carolinian Civil Rights leader, photojournalist, author and historian.
Williams was at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in the South in the ’50s and ’60s, capturing history in real time with his camera. Throughout his keynote address, he described his experiences photographing legendary Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and events like the Orangeburg Massacre.
“I was very young then, I did not realize I was photographing history,” Williams said. “But that is how history usually arrives, quietly. History does not knock on your door and announce itself. It appears while you are busy studying, working, creating, worrying about exams, wondering about your future and trying to find your way.”
Williams also spoke of the power of images. He founded the first and only Civil Rights museum in South Carolina, where his full work is on display. He is currently working to digitize his photography archives, using artificial intelligence programs to colorize his black–and–white images and preserve them.
“The power and impact of a single image can be unmatched in a way,” Williams said. “Like a mirror, you can look into it. An image mimics life like nothing else in our society.”
The theme of the 2026 campus-wide MLK celebration is “RedACTed: What They Tried to BLACK Out.” Cliff-Simon Vital, director of the Unity Center, said the theme is meant to focus on both the past and present erasure of African American history in the United States. He pointed to examples such as President Donald Trump’s criticism of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, as evidence that the current administration is working to minimize and erase parts of American history.
“[The theme] really focuses on what stories aren’t being told and what stories are being forgotten,” Vital said.
Vital said that Williams was the perfect guest to speak on the theme RedACTed.
“Mr. Williams … was breathing in the same air, was in the same room as MLK as Thurgood Marshall as [John F. Kennedy] as Lyndon B. Johnson,” Vital said. “This is right on the nose … you’re talking about somebody who took photographs of history, and then we’re talking about the erasure of history. It just was too perfect to not entertain.”
During his keynote address, Williams also spoke on the theme of RedACTed. He said photography, and art in general, are key to the preservation of history.
“Photography also taught me that framing matters,” Williams said. “What you include in the frame matters. However, I also learned that what you leave out also matters just as much, and history works that way. If certain stories are excluded, our understanding becomes incomplete.”
Vital said he hopes students realize how truly recent the Civil Rights Movement was through hearing William’s presentation. He said it is important to learn from “living ancestors” who experienced this history while they are still with us, not only in history books.
“This is a man who experienced a segregated America,” Vital said. “I really hope that our students take away that history is really not that long ago, and that if we don’t pay attention, we’re doomed to repeat it.”
Vital said they have been planning for Williams’ visit and the keynote address for almost a year. Vital and a committee of staff and faculty work together to brainstorm theme and speaker ideas, beginning almost immediately after the previous year’s MLK celebration ends.
After the keynote address, a group of MLK Scholars facilitated a fireside chat with Williams, asking him more questions about his upbringing and what his time as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement can teach students of today. Williams’ message was one of hope. He said college students played a vital role in the Civil Rights Movement, and they have an important role to play in 2026 as well.
“You are the energies that can do things and move things and change things,” Williams said. “You do not have to wait until graduation to matter in this world today, you do not have to wait until you graduate to matter. History, in fact, has never waited for credentials.”
Sophomore Ayden Jackson was one of the three students to facilitate the fireside chat. He said Williams’ talk was inspiring, and he especially admired Williams’ faith in humanity and the good of people.
“It’s very rare you get to talk to somebody who was in the action of these huge historic events,” Jackson said. “It was amazing to get to talk to him, hear his perspective on our recent events.”
Throughout his talk, Williams directly addressed the students of the college, reminding them of the value of their education and the importance of the opportunities they are receiving at IC.
“Once access to education was gained, it became our most powerful form of resistance, our most powerful form of mobility, our most powerful form of transformation,” Williams said. “Education allowed us to name injustice, to challenge systems, to imagine alternatives, to build futures that had never been offered to us previously.”
