Alicia Meehan, Campus Carrier deputy news editor

Notable hip-hop artist Lecrae started Be Love Week with a lecture as a part of the Conson Wilson Lecture series. The week occurs yearly, with speakers, volunteering and opportunities to talk with other students and community members about real-world problems. 

Lecrae, an actor, artist and author, was the keynote speaker for the MLK Day Gathering — an event sponsored by the GHD Foundation, a program that funds community education. Self-labeled as a “hip-hop artist who happens to be Christian,” he is a proponent of blending faith and modern music. 

Lecrae explained that he views Christianity in four quadrants: excellence, care, distinction and transformational. He said that many Christians enact only one or two categories and fight with those in the other sections. Lecrae said that he wants to show all these aspects within his music. 

“When I first started, I was big on distinction and transformation,” Lecrae said. “But as I got older, you learn how necessary it is to have care and compassion.”

Lecrae’s music is meant to be an advertisement of the kindness that being a Christian has brought to his life. He expressed hope that his music would inspire others to change the world for the better. 

“It’s a commercial for a reality that I’m involved in, showing the love that I’ve experienced and want other people to experience,” Lecrae said. “I would hope that it inspires people. Tupac said that he may not change the world, but he will plant the seed in the mind that will change the world.”    

Be Love Day began in 2023, taking place on Martin Luther King Day. The previous Chief Diversity and Belonging Officer, Haley Smith, created Be Love Day to embody the spirit of Martin Luther King’s non-violence teachings. 

According to senior Sydney Layne, the original Be Love Day transitioned to occupy the entire week two years ago. Layne said that Smith’s decision to expand the timeframe was to lead service into Black History Month in February. 

Layne has worked in the Office of Belonging and Community Engagement for four years and interviewed the keynote speaker of the previous year’s Be Love lecture, Ruby Bridges — the first African-American to attend a desegregated school.

Senior Mykelle Patterson is the student support manager for the Office of Belonging and Community Engagement and worked as the unofficial student director for Be Love Week 2026. According to Patterson, more student leadership was required in preparation for this year’s events due to recent departures and changes in the office’s professional staff. Patterson also worked as a student lead for Solidarity Week last fall. 

Patterson explained that the goal for Be Love Week is for students to engage with the community through service. While this year’s Solidarity Week was about peace, Be Love Week is about turning peace to love in action. She said that the goal is to expand the work done at Berry and bring it to Rome and beyond. 

“We talked about how peace was not passive but active; it was intentional,” Patterson said. “So, for Be Love Week, we try to embody good neighbor culture by not just listening but then putting into action.” 

Patterson said that the service events and opportunities to contribute to the community also align with Martha Berry’s mission: “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”

Be Love Week is full of opportunities for those in Rome to come on campus and learn. The Office of Community Engagement and Belonging partnered with the Rome International Film Festival, the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, panelists from Amber Grace Community at Berry and the Rome chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. These partnered events covered caregiving for students and community members.

“We’re having events like the caregiving panel to learn about what it means to not just give care but to be a caregiver,” Patterson said.

On Thursday evening, Rwandan doctor Anatole Manzi, deputy chief medical officer at Partners in Health, will lead an expo that relates local and global healthcare initiatives from ‘Being Love’ to actively providing care to your community. These events and more are defining Be Love Week’s expanding ambitions.

“[We are] definitely continuing to broaden what “Being Love” looks like past the community service that it started with,” Patterson said. 

Senior Quanah Martin, a staff member of the office of belonging, introduced Lecrae at the Krannert Ballroom at 10 a.m. and interviewed him on stage. 

He described an example of the impact that King’s teaching had on pop culture. The 1960’s show “Star Trek” included a Black woman in a position of respect. The actress for the role told King she wanted to quit. Lecrae explained that King convinced her to remain on the show because of the cultural impact of someone of her character’s race and gender being in power on air had during the height of the era of civil rights movements. 

“He said, ‘the world needs to see this because it’s transformative for society,’” Lecrae said. “And she stayed on that job and became a picture of what it could look like for women and Black people around the world.”

Layne said that it is important to remember that Be Love Week and Solidarity Week are both managed by mostly student staff. Resignations by the professional staff in the office of Belonging and Community Engagement left the student workers with the job of managing Be Love Week on their own.

“This is all pretty much student-led, especially with all the changes in the office,” Layne said. “This week was made possible by the students, definitely give them kudos.” 

Layne expressed her desire for Be Love Week to continue. The teachings of MLK stand out and set an example of actively instilling peace and love in the community.  

“I think the work we do in the community is great and this is one of the days that we can highlight and say, ‘we have the day off, but we’re actually still on and we’re working,’” Layne said.