By Jan. 21, 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had traveled a long, long way to stand alone.

Taking the podium at Rec Hall, hard memories of the civil rights movement surrounded the lone figure's presence and entwined with the hope of his words.

Gone that day were the multitudes who marched with him, struggled with him and prayed with him in a brief break from the day-to-day struggle for civil rights.

But a sense of urgency remained.

"We have come a long, long way in the struggle for social justice, but we have a long, long way to go," King told the members of a predominately white Penn State University that day.

"And so if we only look, if we will only notice the developments in our nation, we will be objective enough and realistic enough and honest enough to know that we still have a long, long way to go," he said.

Just days before delivering his speech at Penn State, King took part in what would be a three-month protest for voting rights.

Although the Constitution's fifteenth amendment prohibited racial discrimination in voting, few black Americans had been allowed to a cast a vote.

"And at the pace they are presently registering Negroes in Dallas County, it will take exactly 132 years to get half of the Negroes eligible to vote registered in that county," King said in his speech. "This is a pattern throughout most of the so-called black belt counties across the South. If democracy is to be a reality, this problem must be solved."

A march beginning in Selma, Ala., and led by King and other outspoken leaders of the movement, demanded stronger voting rights. Pushed into action, President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act in March, but did not sign it into law until August.

"Every obstacle must be moved if we are to have a healthy and mature democracy," King said. "Every obstacle must be moved that stands in the way of the Negro becoming a registered voter."

Today, University administrators and students point to the timelessness of King's words, spoken 25 years ago this month. While some members of the University community highlight progress, most agree that definite areas of inequality remain in American society.

"Although we have moved forward in the area of education, some economic gains and also in the area of civil rights, there is still work to be done," said Grace Hampton, University vice provost.

And when it comes to "attitudinal change" toward racially and culturally diverse groups, director of religious affairs Thomas Poole emphasizes "we have a long way to go."

"For us to sit here in 1990 and look at, relatively speaking, how little things have changed . . . I think perhaps it's a more painful statement to make," Poole said.

Even when gains are made in civil rights, it is easy to forget that those advances can be reversed, said Black Caucus President Walter Mosley.

'It's not something that you're born with, it's something that's been given to you," Mosley said. "Just as it's been given to you, it can be taken away."

Recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court have been widely viewed as blows to the civil rights progress made during the period that King embodied.

Awareness has increased since King's era, when the word minority meant only black Americans, said William Henson, professor of agriculture economics, who taught at the University in 1965. Now, however, an age of cultural identity has acknowledged Asian-American, Hispanic and Caribbean students, he said.

Black student protests during the last three years have been important steps toward improvement of the community, he said.

"I think they were necessary to bring about a response from the University in the climate that existed at that time," Hensen said.

Henson said he remembers the general student population at that time as "being neutral, unaware, indifferent." And "the minority population was so small that the majority population could very well ignore it," he said.

But those among the 9,000 who attended the Nobel Prize laureate's speech recall the excitement.

"It was, for us, a momentous occasion," said Barbara Faulkner, State College resident, who attended the event with her husband.

"I remember my husband said when we went to hear him that he wondered how long he would live," she recalled. "He thought it was a matter of time before somebody did what they did."

Joseph Faulkner, a sociology professor at the University, said because King was leading a movement to change American society, he was "a prime candidate for assassination."

"If you attack the power structure . . . somebody will try to remove you," he said.

Faulkner also remembered the attitudes of some State College whites in the 1960s, when local barbers would not cut black people's hair. He and some friends organized a picket of one barber shop which refused to wait on a friend because of his skin color.

The effect of the picket "wasn't immediate" he said, noting that it took several months to get barbers to change their policy.

Portions of King's 1965 speech will be used in today's "1990 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation." The event is part of a week long celebration organized by student groups, the University and downtown organizations.

Elizabeth Walker, chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said students can use King's words to reflect on the present state of civil rights.

"His speech is very pertinent to us today," she said.