Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.; President Barack Obama; and Notre Dame President Emeritus Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., smile at Commencement 2009 as President Obama is presented with a gift print of Father Hesburgh and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The image, by an unidentified photographer, captures Father Hesburgh and King linking hands in solidarity during a civil rights rally at Soldier Field in Chicago in 1964. Work in support of civil rights – marked most prominently by his service on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights – was among the many major social issues in which Father Hesburgh was involved.