BLACKSBURG -- Martin Luther King Jr. never gave an "I Have a Dream" speech.

He gave a "broken promise" speech.

That was the message the Rev. Jesse Jackson delivered to about 3,000 people Monday night in a packed Burruss Hall Auditorium at Virginia Tech.

"We were promised reparations. We were promised reconstruction," he said. "The 13th Amendment, the right to vote ... you must know what the broken promises were."

Part history lesson, part call for future action, Jackson spoke directly to his audience for most of his speech, the keynote address that kicked off a week of activities to honor King. But one part of his speech that received a good deal of reaction from his audience was directed at King.

"The unwilling don't deserve your sacrifice. The unregistered don't deserve your sacrifice," he said to applause. "On Election Day there should be long lines as if it were a Hokie-Virginia football game."

Jackson was brought in to speak by Virginia Tech alumnus Doug Curling, president of ChoicePoint, an Atlanta-based information company. The company would not say how much it cost to bring Jackson to Blacksburg.

Jackson's visit was part of an unprecedented weeklong celebration at Tech. Monday marked the first time classes were canceled in honor of Martin Luther King Day at the school, which has seen its share of problems involving minority rights over the past three years. The past few years have seen incidents of racist graffiti on campus and student protests over a residence hall named after a Tech graduate who may have had ties to the Ku Klux Klan. In March 2003, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors voted to eliminate affirmative action at the school -- a decision that was soon reversed.

But on Monday night, Tech officials lauded the school's principles of community, signed by school officials last March to affirm the rights of every person on campus and espouse the value of diversity.

On Monday, students said that things are improving at the school but the tribute to King was long overdue.

Michael Goode, a Virginia Tech senior who is the Student Government Association's director of diversity affairs, said he's comfortable being a minority on campus, but diversity goes beyond skin color.

"You have to have a strong sense of identity," said Goode. "I think if you're open to some new experiences, you can be comfortable."

In his signature halting tone, Jackson touched on everything from politics to religion to sports. The former college football scholarship recipient said he believes one reason black people do well in athletics is because the playing field is even and the goal is clear. Virginia Tech's success on the football field today wouldn't exist if the school was segregated, he said.

"You'd still be all-white, inadequate and slow," he said to laughter.

Jackson's speech was part of a two-hour program Monday night that included a re-enactment of King's famous speech and a poem read by Virginia Tech professor Takiyah Amin. The reading brought some of the loudest applause of the night with Amin's refrain, "He is still with us."

Jackson opened the speech saying he was baffled by how differently King is viewed today.

"We love him now as a trophy. We all love him now," he said. "But in life he was so hated."

But to view the slain civil rights leader as a symbol to be held up and cheered is to miss the point, Jackson said. King was attacked by individuals and his government. He was able to weather those things because of his education and his faith.

"He was anointed bottom-up, not appointed top-down," he said. "He did not appear on TV one day and have people say, 'Here's your leader.' "