The life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were celebrated at Rosa Parks Elementary in the Redmond Ridge neighborhood Thursday morning.
Just a week earlier, Principal Jeff Newport challenged a sixth grade reading group to take a break from “The Call of the Wild” and create a program to educate the entire school about King’s dream of equality for all people. Led by students Diana Pruss and Ally Merrick, the group organized an assembly with skits, poetry and music recalling America’s civil rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s.
Rosa Parks Elementary is named for a pivotal figure in that movement — a black woman who, in Alabama in 1955, refused to give her seat on a bus to a white passenger.
Still, the kids said they didn’t know very much about King’s non-violent activism until this endeavor. Their research focused on the many instances of discrimination which were common in that time period: “You must go to the back of the bus. … We don’t serve blacks here. … Your vote doesn’t count.” As well, they recited excerpts from King’s powerful “I Have a Dream” speech that he delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963.
Because Redmond is a diverse and educated community, it can sometimes be hard for children to comprehend that there were — and still are — places with so much tension, even hatred, between people of different races or religions.
“It’s just weird how they would do this because of skin color. No matter what color they are, they’re still people like us,” said student Emily Case.
At Rosa Parks Elementary, “Courage Assemblies,” held almost every Friday, present opportunities to recognize students who went out of their way to do something kind for someone else or to take a stand against an injustice.
As such, Newport noted, “King’s legacy is very important. We talk about courage quite a bit. He stood for something.”
Newport added that this message translates even to seeing children help each other resolve playground disputes in a peaceful way.
Pruss said that studying about King’s passion to unite people has made it clear to her, “To reach a goal, you have to work really hard. It doesn’t happen immediately.”
Fellow student Aditya Ramanathan added, “Without Dr. King, I might not have the friends that I have now.”
Praising the students for a job well done, Newport said their process of creating the assembly illustrated “what I call Prepared for Personal Success in Life,” a motto in the Lake Washington School District.
“Test scores can sometimes measure success, but in Lake Washington School District, we want to see them pull it all together, demonstrate what they can do, think quickly when they’re involved in so many other things. … One of our guiding principles is to push them out of their comfort zone.”
