THE DREAM LIVES ON
Students’ MLK speeches resound with disappointment, hope
Nyla Johnson stepped up onto the platform with her head held high, her floral crystal hairpiece sparkling as it caught the light. She took in a deep breath, puffed up her chest and opened her mouth.
The voice of the 11-year-old boomed amid the stunned silence of the crowd, bouncing off the stained glass windows and creaky, wood pews of the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, built in downtown Houston by former slaves in 1866.
“I’ve BEEEEEEEN to the mountaintop,” Nyla sang out. “And I’ve looked over, and I’ve SEEEEEN the promised land.”
Her chest puffed out a little extra and she rocked onto her tiptoes as her voice bellowed, stressing different vowels. It was a technique used by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his speeches.
“I may not get there with you,” she continued. “But I want you all to know today that WEEEEEE’RE a nation that will get to the promised land.”
Her speech, greeted with roaring applause and a standing ovation, won the Lockhart Elementary School fifth-grader first-place honors in the 23rd annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Oratory Competition, held annually by the Houston Indepen-
“I may not get there with you. But I want you all to know today that we’re a nation that will get to the promised land.”
Nyla Johnson, 11, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Oratory Competition winner
dent School District on the Friday before Martin Luther King Day.
Twelve fourth- and fifth-graders were finalists in the competition, which asked the question, “What would Dr. King say to the children of today’s world?” Their speeches touched upon the federal government shutdown, family separations at the border, mass incarceration, police brutality and even the digital age’s obsession with screens.
Well prepared
“Education, determination, compassion and courage,” Raheem Khokhar said, listing the values he believes King would tweet, had the social media platform existed in the civil rights leader’s era..
Then he looked down at his hands, counting on his fingers.
“Only 45 characters. Phew!” he said, wiping the imaginary sweat off his forehead.
“I always want to hear how young people see things,” said Jolanda Jones, HISD board trustee. “They’re very sophisticated thinkers. They’re very observant. They’re not nearly as dumb as we think; they are paying attention and were able to convey messages better than most adults.”
For the kids, the year leading up to the event required exhaustive preparation.
Leik Mire, 10, researched King’s speeches, taking notes on the content and the delivery. She prepared for her speech every day, staying late at school, practicing with her teachers and in front of her classmates and church members to make sure she had her minutes-long speech perfectly memorized.
“Everybody wants to focus on the good things, but they don’t bring up the bad things that are happening,” Leik said. “People think they have equality, but it’s not really equality — we have other people being left out.”
When Alexandria Zelaya took the stage, her first words were, “I am the daughter of immigrants.” She pounded her chest — “I,”
pound, “AM,” pound, “the daughter of immigrants.”
“My parents were born and raised in Mexico and El Salvador,” she continued. “I stand before you today as a representation of the many hopeful families who have come to this land with heavy hearts, clinging to the American Dream for a better life. I am a product of the American Dream.”
‘Keep fighting’
There was disappointment in the children’s speeches — disappointment in partisan politics, disappointment in a hardened stance on immigration, disappointment in mass incarceration and police brutality, in online bullying and rising rates of depression and suicide.
But there was also hope.
“I am positive that (King) would say, ‘My dear children, although we have not fulfilled the dream, we cannot lose hope,’ ” Jones, the HISD trustee, said in her speech. “You must keep fighting. You must continue the work of your ancestors. You must rise and get out of this place of complacency.”