Antioch College Main Building. (News archive photo)
15 to graduate from Antioch College
- Published: June 20, 2025
On Saturday, June 21, 15 students will graduate from Antioch College — an auspicious number of degrees to be conferred, as the college is also celebrating 15 years since the hiring of Mark Roosevelt as president in 2010, leading to the school’s reopening in 2011.
Of even greater serendipity, this year marks Antioch’s 175th anniversary since its founding in 1850.
Delivering this year’s commencement address is the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a renowned leader, minister and professor of public theology and public policy at Yale Divinity School. Barber also serves as a member of the national board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, and is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.
A press release from the college describes Barber as a “powerful voice for justice and equality” and the selection of him to deliver this year’s commencement address “reflects Antioch’s enduring commitment to social change and ethical leadership.”
The Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a renowned civil rights and spiritual leader, will deliver this year’s commencement address for a graduating class of 15 from Antioch College. The graduation is set for Saturday, June 21; limited community seating is available for the ceremonies, which begin at 10 a.m. (Submitted photo)
The release notes Barber has been called “the closest person we have to Martin Luther King Jr.” — who, in fact, delivered the commencement address 60 years ago in 1965 to a graduating class of 296 Antiochians.
The message imbued in King’s 1965 commencement address, titled “Facing the Challenge of a New Age,” remains relevant to this day, Antioch professor of history Kevin McGruder wrote in an email shared with the News.
“[King] spoke several months after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, and his remarks include references to international tension,” McGruder said. “He emphasized the increasing interrelation between nations, which is in stark contrast to the current [Trump] administration’s move away from participation in international alliances or responsibilities.”
Owing to the sustained prescience of King’s commencement speech and the similarities between him and Barber, the News is republishing its 1965 coverage of the address below.
For additional details on the June 21 commencement ceremony or to RSVP, go online to http://www.antiochcollege.edu/commencement2025/.
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the 1965 commencement address at Antioch College. Photo courtesy of Antioch College/Antiochiana
‘Challenges of our time’
The following article, written by then-editor Kieth Howard, appeared on the front page of the June 23, 1965, issue of the Yellow Springs News:
Solving the problems of racial injustice, poverty and war are the leading challenges of our time, “one of the most momentous periods of human history,” Martin Luther King told Antioch College’s graduates Saturday.
He called for “participants, involved people, in the struggle to make brotherhood and justice realities in our day.”
The 296 Antioch graduating seniors received their diplomas from Antioch [President] James P. Dixon in the commencement program.
Dr. King, speaking on “Facing the Challenge of a New Age,” cited five challenges:
Five challenges listed
1. To develop a new perspective in a world that is “geographically one.”
2. “To work with vigor and determination to remove poverty from the face of the earth … the millions who go to bed hungry, almost two thirds of the world.”
3. “To work passionately, unrelentingly, to remove the last vestiges of racial segregation and discrimination. … The system is on its deathbed today, and the only thing I am concerned about is how costly the segregationists will make the funeral.”
4. To solve “other nagging problems brought about [by] automation. … The Negro steps out of discrimination into automation.” Needed, the civil rights leader said, are “massive public works programs, massive retraining programs, so that people can have jobs.”
5. To work to bring an end to war and bloodshed. “Either nonviolence or nonexistence” are the alternatives, Dr. King said, and “action programs … demonstrations” are needed to “keep the issue before the conscience of the world. The war in Vietnam must be stopped, and America must be willing to negotiate with all involved parties.
“We can never again live without each other. We must somehow learn to live with each other — black and white, theist and atheist, Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile,” Dr. King stressed. “I still have faith in the future … in America,” he declared. “The Negroes are going to win their freedom, because the goal of America is freedom. Our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America.”
President Dixon speaks
[Antioch College] President Dixon, in his closing remarks, called this “the time for optimism … despite the ominous risks involved in change.
“We believe (at Antioch) that unless educated persons can involve both trained minds and whole personalities in addressing themselves to problems of life,” the president said, “man is likely to wander back to the cave. … Your generation has told us that unless we are able to learn, within the educational community, to take for granted trust, autonomy, initiative, and industry, we too, like other colleges and universities, will have grave difficulty in extending our heritage of the past through the present into the future.
“My optimism for Antioch is based on my belief that we have heard what you have told us and are actively engaged in taking it into account.”
Dixon recognized as special guests of the occasion King’s wife, formerly Coretta Scott, a former Antioch student; as well as Antioch’s president emeritus, Arthur E. Morgan.
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