Landsmark urges continued vigilance to honor the legacy of MLK

Northeastern University commemorates the life and work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

by Cyrus Moulton

January 15, 2026

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He marched on Washington, D.C., and in Selma, Alabama. He worked on rent strikes in New York City and was attacked by a protester simply for being a person of color in Boston. 

And Northeastern professor Ted Landsmark remains adamant that now is not a time to abandon the fight for social progress.  

“Cultural change happens in cycles, and we can’t afford to sit back and be complacent when we have made certain progressive steps,” said Landsmark, distinguished professor of public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern and director of the university’s Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy. “We can never assume that those are going to be forever.”  

Landsmark spoke Thursday during “A Tribute to the Dream: Voices of Past, Present and Future,” the university’s commemoration of the life, work and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 

The event, held on Northeastern’s Boston campus, featured reflections on King’s legacy and musical performances that were both personal and universal.

President Joseph E. Aoun described his discovery of King’s writings at a library in Beirut.

“This was very inspirational, not only for me, but the whole generation,” Aoun said. “It was for every community that felt it was discriminated against.” 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Graduate Fellow Chikamadu Okafor discussed how King’s struggle for civil rights spread throughout the world.

“He saw that what happens here in America is very much so interconnected to everything that’s happening in Africa, in other Black diaspora communities,” Okafor said. “That needs to be our driving force – seeing ourselves as one whole community.”

The highlight of the event, however, was Landsmark, a beloved academic and  local civil rights activist.

A short biographical film discussed Landsmark’s life and activism while, in another video message, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu praised Landsmark as a person “who spent every day building a better Boston.”

“There are still those who say that justice and equality, dignity and freedom can only exist if they are exclusive,” Wu said. “But then there’s also still Ted Landsmark, who has spent his life fighting for justice and community every step of the way.”

The visual presentations were followed by a discussion between Landsmark and Northeastern graduate Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent at The New York Times.

Much of the conversation focused on Landsmark as the figure in the Pulitzer prize-winning photograph “The Soiling of Old Glory,” which shows a white teenager attacking Landsmark with an American flag during an anti-busing protest in 1976. 

“The city still struggles with that image,” Landsmark said. “I never anticipated that 50 years later, we would be facing the kinds of struggles and impediments that we face at this moment, for me as an educator, the photograph and the recognition simply speak to the work that remains to be done and the obligation we have not to be complacent about progressive steps that we may have taken that have come to fruition.”

Landsmark and Kanno-Youngs also related the photograph to the images currently coming from Minneapolis following the recent fatal shooting of a protester by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. 

“Most of our major cities have been through these moments where race has risen as a very negative factor within the city’s culture,” Landsmark said. But he said that Minneapolis would recover just as Boston is recovering, 

“because you can see in the reaction to the negative things, how local residents have risen up to try to rebuild a sense of community that is inclusive,” Landsmark said. 

The distinguished professor also struck an optimistic tone in speaking about what the next generation of activists can learn from King.

“He lived his values,” Landsmark said. “One of the roles of an educator is to encourage people – whatever people’s point of view may be – to be true to themselves and to be true to their values, and to speak truth to power.”

He praised Northeastern for embracing these principles.

Aoun, the university’s president, lauded Landsmark as being “an icon.” 

“When you’re describing Dr. King, you’re describing yourself,” Aoun told Landsmark. “You are a thinker and a doer and an inspirational leader.”