BATON ROUGE - The three colleges in the capital city — Baton Rouge Community College, Southern University and LSU — came together Thursday night to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Cedric Noel is president of the Student Union at Southern. He says Thursday night was all about unity.

“As a part of the Martin Luther King Jr. dream, his dream was to unite everyone together, and as a part of that, we have to be united. And that starts here with the three universities in the city,” he said.

The colleges recognized student and community leaders with a goal to resolve issues in Baton Rouge and build unity through diversity in the city.

“As the community continues to grow, we’re made up of people from all races and nationalities, but tonight, this allows us to signify and unify with one event, and that is to serve everyone,” Noel said.

Southern University hosted this year's event, with the keynote speaker being Louisiana State Representative Patrick Jefferson.

Dr. King himself visited the historic university in 1955. His impact was felt throughout the building as people talked about character, equality and community involvement.

“If we do not dream, then we’ll have a nightmare, and a nightmare is something that we do not want. We have enough nightmares every day,” Noel said.