When Yolanda King came on stage last night, she didn't walk to the podium and begin her speech.

She stopped, center stage, and recited a poem.

King, an actor, human rights activist and daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, spoke for about an hour to an audience of just 350 people last night in Eisenhower Auditorium, which seats 2,500. King's speech concluded the 2005-2006 Distinguished Speaker Series (DSS).

King used music, dance, poetry and acting to illuminate important moments in the civil rights movement.

She said that people needed to embrace their common humanity.

"We have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers and sisters," King said. "Can't we move an ounce higher than simply tolerating one another?"

King said that DNA evidence shows that humans differ in less than 1 percent of their total genetic code.

"The most important parts of us are the same," she said.

However, she said that human differences are not going away.

"We must celebrate difference until difference doesn't make a difference," she said.

King said that a mosaic was a more accurate analogy for diversity than a melting pot, because people retain their diversity.

"People do not melt," she said.

She said that people must take a side for or against diversity.

"You know what happens when you stand in the middle of the road -- you eventually get run over," she said.

She quoted Mahatma Ghandi, saying, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

King said that for many young people today, the civil rights movement seems like ancient history, but it is still important to remember the past.

"The dream held by my father and my mother is still a dream," she said.

King quoted a Carl Wendell Himes Jr. poem that said, "It is easier to build monuments than it is to make a better world."

She said that it was important to correct problems, not just show they exist, and that part of her mission is to increase peace in the world.

It is important for people to find their own inner peace, King said.

"So many people are separated from their true spiritual power," she said.

She said that her recent book, Embracing Your Power in 30 Days, tries to teach people how to increase their personal power and freedom.

King said that schools have a mandate to address diversity in their curriculums. History classes must show both the native and the European side of the colonization of America, she said.

"We must teach the story as if everyone mattered," King said.

Penn State students should have classes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, she said, because students can learn about diversity in school.

"What happens, more often than not, is that if you get a day off, you just take a long weekend," she said.

Patrice Alston (junior-psychology) apologized to King for the speech's poor attendance.

"I want to apologize on behalf of the Penn State community, because this place should be filled," she said.

Alston said that the speech was "amazing" and had challenged her to raise awareness of diversity.

Cekeiah Durham (freshman-computer engineering) said that she liked the acting portions of the speech.

"We got a better understanding of what it was like in those times," she said, referring to the civil rights movement.

DSS chairwoman Leah Weiser said students can e-mail suggestions for next year's speaker lineup to her or staff assistant Erin Grenoble at elg8@sa.psu.edu.