PROVO — Images of black men beaten and arrested more than 37 years ago frightened 7-year-old Shelby Gist on Sunday night as she watched a movie about Martin Luther King Jr. with her family.
She looked up at her own African-American father and white mother and, tears joining her fear, asked a heart-rending question: "Are the police going to come here and take Daddy away?"
Before Eddie or Heather Gist could manage an answer, their 8-year-old son dismissed Shelby's concerns.
"Not now," Eddie Jr. said. "That was in the past."
That moment convinced the Gists their children were old enough to understand and celebrate King's birthday, and an Internet search led the Midvale family to BYU on Monday night for the university's annual "Walk of Life."
Eddie Jr. and Shelby each invited neighborhood friends, and the Gists, with 3-year-old Sariah in tow, joined an estimated 700 marchers, most of them whites, in a candlelight walk, LDS hymns and gospel spirituals.
The reverent procession from BYU's Carillon Tower across North Campus Drive to the Wilkinson Student Center symbolized King's message of equality and peace, a message some of the school's black students said was deeply rooted in both the American dream and Christianity.
"The candles represent the light the wise men followed to the stable; that was the light Martin Luther King followed," said Jessi Lewis, a BYU sophomore who serves as activities chairman for the Black Student Union.
The turnout thrilled Quiana Gough, who conducted the program inside the student center. A pre-nursing major from Baltimore, Md., Gough said there are 144 black students at BYU.
"This is a chance to share my culture," Gough said. "A lot of students here have never gone to school with black people or lived with them before. We want them to see we are normal people with the same goals and the same views. What they feel is important to them is important to us."
Gough acknowledged that racism persists, but she chose to focus on the progress made by King since his assassination in 1968.
The first half of King's "I Have a Dream" speech was powerfully delivered by Abe Mills, a former BYU football player and singer with the boy band Jericho Road.
"Martin Luther King made it his life's purpose to promote freedom for every man and every women," said Mills, who has read portions of the speech at the "Walk of Life" for a decade. "We want to remind ourselves every year to never do anything to offend or prejudice anyone, regardless of race, color, economic background or any other reason."
Mills' reading was followed by a film of King delivering the end of the speech in 1963 in Washington, D.C.
Two years later, he led marchers to Selma, Ala., where they followed King's lead and peacefully resisted police attempts to turn them away from the city.
On Sunday night, Shelby and Eddie Jr. came across the movie "Selma, Lord, Selma" on the Disney Channel. Eddie Gist Sr. is glad he and his wife joined the children in front of the TV.
"It was great to see her (Shelby) so worried and touched by it and then see him (Eddie Jr.) so confident it's in the past," Gist said. "I wanted them to know this is a celebration of freedom and non-violence. It's so easy to react to violence. It takes a strong man to stick to his principles and not retaliate."
E-MAIL: twalch@desnews.com