Monday, Jan. 16, the Central Brooklyn Martin Luther King Commission honored Dr. King’s life through the eyes of Brooklyn’s youth.
Brooklyn’s oldest annual family celebration of King’s legacy, sponsored by the Central Brooklyn Martin Luther King Commission, was a free event featuring student art, essay and poetry presentations, as well as special guest performances by the choruses and dance company of the Brooklyn School for Music and Theatre. Approximately 500 people attended the celebration.
From the 23 participating schools, 27 winning students received cash scholarship awards for their essays, poems and artwork. In addition, Brooklyn Technical High School received the award for recruiting the largest number of contestants, and The Glenwood Academy of Science & Technology, Public School 109, received the award for the most successful cohort of students.
Children who attended the family celebration received a gift, book or educational toy, and families participated in a free raffle in which one of the prizes was a computer.
Congress Member Yvette Clarke, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, New York State Assembly members Jo Anne Simon, Diana Richardson and Walter Mosley and New York City Council Member Laurie Cumbo attended the event. Both Clarke and James mentioned the appropriateness of remembering King’s vision and work in the context of the new presidential administration.
“The submissions from our students reflected strong concerns about police brutality, climate change, prejudice against immigrants and Muslims and gun violence, among other issues,” said Christopher R. Owens, Commission president and son of the late Congressman and Commission Founder Major Owens.
“This celebration never ceases to uplift those in attendance,” said Owens, “because we see in real time the evolution of our future leaders. There is no better two-hour investment in Dr. King’s legacy anywhere.”
Owens continued, “Children today are both optimistic and pessimistic. One of our essay winners invoked Dr. King’s courage as she wrote about her mother wearing a hijab when others were afraid to do so. In praising Dr. King’s opposition to the Vietnam War and those who resisted World War I, another winner asked, ‘When do we draw the line between what our government tells us and what we know are facts?’”
Another essay winner declared, “If I were Dr. King, I would probably try to lead protests just like the people are doing now” with regard to police brutality, while a poetry winner wrote, “Colored individuals have struggled for a very long time. It almost seems like a war crime. Don’t get me wrong, the times have changed. But they’ve only been slightly rearranged.”
