Students Prepare for and Commemorate MLK Day
Students at Samuelson Elementary School walked a silent lap around their school and then all 450 held hands as they listened to MLK’s I Have a Dream speech.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day isn’t until Monday but events around the district were setting the stage for it heading into the weekend.
On Thursday a committed bunch of students reported to the Urban Leadership creative space on the 3rd floor at Central Campus after school to get their marching orders. The RunDSM Youth Advisory Board was holding a “pop-up workshop” to prepare for events scheduled on MLK Day. There won’t be school which means there will be ample opportunity for community activism.
First there were snacks. Then a few of the poets “spat” to set the mood. The crowded room got boisterous with youthful camaraderie until a series of prompts for MLK Day pieces were scrawled on the whiteboard. Then a 15 minute period of intense writing ensued and the room went from 60 to zero like a hypnotist’s fingers had snapped. Everyone buckled down, most working on their smartphones, others with pencils and binders. Auditions were held to decide who performs on Monday.
Posters and placards were also painted. Monday they’ll be on display during a rally on the state capitol steps and the march through downtown and the East Village that will follow. Poetry will be polished up for broadcast at stops along the route including the State Historical Building, the Science Center of Iowa, the Des Moines Police Department and the Polk County Courthouse.
Many MLK Day observances remember Dr. King. Expect this one to emulate him.
On Friday morning Samuelson Elementary did its thing.
At 9:00 AM each class filed into the looong corridors. Silently, as in no one made a peep, 450+ kids marched a lap around the building. Two lanes of traffic marched in opposite directions. When everyone was back where they started the multi-colored menagerie of children clasped hands with one another while they listened to a recorded excerpt from Dr. King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech beginning at the part about “I have a dream that one day…little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers…”
After the crescendo at the conclusion of the speech (“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”) there was a quiet pause. Then a trickle of singing started at the far end of each corridor. It was timid at first but grew stronger and convincing as it spread, like a sprinkle becomes a downpour: “We shall overcome, we shall overcome…we shall overcome, someday…”
Then everyone went back to class. There is work yet to do.
Friday afternoon Findley Elementary picked up the beat.
Kindergarteners-3rd graders toured the 4th and 5th grade classrooms for an assortment of “informances” that included poetry readings, historical tableaus, Readers Theater and music. The older scholars, as they’re labeled at Findley, embraced their roleplaying of luminaries like Presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson as well as civil rights icons like Dr. King and Rosa Parks. Milestones in the movement like Truman’s executive order banning segregation in the military in 1948, Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the Letter from the Birmingham Jail in 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were portrayed.
In Bob Williams’ 5th grade class he was reminding his scholar/poets about some free activities they can take advantage of on Monday when they’ll have the day off from school: skating at Brenton Plaza and exhibits at the Science Center of Iowa, for example. He was interrupted by the arrival of Kari Osborne’s kindergarteners. They sat on the floor fanned out in front of the big kids and were suddenly awash beneath a waterfall of poetry. First it was everyone in unison, then small group breakouts of three or four at a time; finally a few individuals stood and recited originals of their own.
The teenaged citizens of RunDSM/Movement 515 and Central Campus Urban Leadership? Monday’s march might pass right by their successors at the skating rink and SCI. Their lead is being followed.
