The King Coalition, in collaboration with the Urban League of Greater Madison and the City of Madison, are getting ready to host the annual Martin Luther King Day of Service, which is a space dedicated to “engaging students in meaningful conversations and activities, on what otherwise would be a day off from school, in alignment with the message and movement of Dr. King,” according to Andrew Schilcher, director of middle school programs for the Urban League of Greater Madison.
The event will take place at Madison Central Library, 201 W. Mifflin St., on Monday, Jan. 16th, noon-5 p.m. Lunch will be provided and served by 12:30 pm, and this event is free and open to the public. Registration is limited to youth groups serving middle school ages. Volunteers, at all experience levels, are welcome to support the various MLK Day events planned for this weekend. Partners and supporters of the event include MMSD, MSCR, Dane County Department of Human Services, Madison Out of School Time (MOST), and the City of Madison Public Library systems.
Historically, youth have been at the forefront of social justice movements and have maintained the legacy of community power through movements like the Civil Rights Movement and subsequent Black Power and Arts Movements. Events like the Greensboro sit-ins from February to July in 1960, were a series of nonviolent direct action, led predominantly by youth and many young adults from across the country and they adopted many of the same philosophies spearheaded by Martin Luther King and other influential movement organizers.
“This year, we actually set out with an explicit goal to engage youth in helping to plan and helping to guide how we set the learning objectives for the event,” Schilcher says. “So we did some youth surveys and focus grouping with youth, earlier this fall, to hear from them about how they wanted to learn more about who King was as a person, and what the movement was since it wasn’t just one static event over time.” Overall the Urban League is facilitating a willingness among the youth to learn more about Martin Luther King and the subsequent movements he was involved in.
Participants of Martin Luther King Day of Service have many activities and workshops to look forward to that center the lived experiences of grassroots organizers, especially youth organizers, as well as interpreting past speeches Dr. King gave, that haven’t always been circulated in the mainstream. Deana Wright, daughter of the late Reverend James C Wright, will be leading a workshop engaging students in a discussion around Dr. King’s “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint” addressed to a group of middle school students in October 1967. “We thought it was important that students could hear from King in his own voice. Even though the records we can find aren’t of the best quality, it is still important that we hear him as a person.” Schilcher tells Madison365.
This event is also a learning opportunity seeking to “[help] students engage with source material that they may not have otherwise known to go out and look for. Or they may not have access to it, whether it is on their own or through their schools.”
Other workshops include opportunities to learn how large movements have been organized and sustained over the years, and to pinpoint the ways conversation and issues have been reshaped, or have stayed the same since the Civil Rights Movement of the late ’50s through the ’60s.
This event is one of many the Urban League has lined up for this weekend to celebrate MLK Day. Madison community members can also look forward to the 40th annual MLK Outstanding Young Person Breakfast at Edgewood High School, on Sunday, Jan. 14, where nearly 200 middle and high school students of color will be recognized for their participation in the community, extracurricular activities, and academic achievements.
