MLK Day to Further Recent Campus Discussions

In observance of Friday’s annual observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day at PEA, the campus will offer numerous workshops and speeches with the aim of raising consciousness and broadening perspectives in the community.

This year’s activities include a keynote address from musician and activist John Forté ‘93, as well as a lecture from speaker and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Bryan Stevenson. Additionally, workshop leaders will weave into the discussion the recent events surrounding Staten Island, NY, Ferguson, Missouri and the nation as a whole.

The required lecture, which the entire student body will attend, will be led by Bryan Stevenson, a frequent activist for African American rights, law professor at NYU and the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative. His talk will focus on the incarceration of African Americans throughout the United States. In 2012, Stevenson presented a related TED talk, which received a standing ovation and over $1 million in fundraising. Also headlining this year’s MLK day is musician and Exeter alumnus John Forté. Forté was a member of the Grammy-winning Fugees, but was imprisoned in 2001 for a trafficking crime. After President George W. Bush pardoned Forté during his 14 year sentence, he returned to producing music and engaging in several philanthropic efforts.

The presence of Forté and Stevenson at this year’s MLK day was determined long ago, when the MLK Day Committee met to organize Friday’s events. “The planning process started almost immediately after the previous MLK Day,” faculty member of the committee and math instructor Phillip Mallinson said.

Upper and committee member Nick Madamidola concurred with Mallinson. “Basically, in terms of the planning, each week the committee would meet in Mr. [Thomas] Simpson's classroom to discuss what we want MLK day to be about,” he said. “It is pretty much a year long process, talking about what went well and what did not go so well in last year’s events.”

Mallinson noted the many responsibilities of the committee, which have to be handled for a well-organized and powerful MLK day.

“We have to pick a keynote speaker, which is the most important part of the day,” he said. “To keep the format of half the school going to their chosen workshop in the morning and half going to the required workshop and then flipping, the next most important decision is picking the required workshop leader. It is vital to have someone after the keynote speaker who can do a session for half the school, or the ‘half and half.”

This year’s “half and half” spot will be spearheaded by Stevenson.

“I think that the ‘half and half’ with Bryan Stevenson about incarceration will be amazing,” Mallinson added.

Forté was selected by the committee not only because of his status as an alumnus and his position in the music scene, but also because, according to Mallinson, he has a story to tell.

“He is talking about his journey of redemption,” Mallinson said, regarding Forté’s speech. “He has had a very checkered history—he was convicted of trafficking cocaine after he left the Academy. He went to prison, got out and then began his journey of redemption. He very much regrets what he did, and he has now started to explore his music.”

Mallinson said that he hopes Forté’s words will have a lasting impact on the Exeter community. “Is this a person who can say something that will resonate with the audience? Hopefully, Forté will be the right choice for the job.”

In addition to the two headline speeches, MLK Day 2015 will include workshops that tackle race relations and recent occurrences in America and around the world. One workshop features a Harkness-type forum in which students discuss current events unfolding in our country.

“About 12 students will essentially sit around a large Harkness table, and discuss the events... in Ferguson, in Staten Island, in Brooklyn. And then the audience—the other participants—will chime in,” Mallinson said on the subject. “In all my years on the committee, this will be the first year that we will have had a workshop that was completely devoted to a live discussion of current events.”

Health instructor and committee member Michelle Soucy discussed the impact that police brutality and the mass incarceration of blacks will have on the day’s activities.

“This issue is nothing new to the social justice work that has been going on around our country,” Soucy said. “However, these things were not front page news and were rarely talked about. Brian Stevenson has been working for years on bringing light to the issues surrounding the practice of charging and incarcerating children, the poor and disadvantaged.”

MLK committee head and religion instructor Thomas Simpson was instrumental to the effective incorporation of recent events into this year’s workshops.

“Mr. Simpson seems to have his thumb on the pulse of what is brewing in the world of social justice work, and he is able to bring the topics to our committee to think about,” Soucy said. “It just so happens that the tragic events that have happened have given this issue the national attention it deserves. Hopefully, students, faculty and staff will walk away from the day with motivation to spark change in the future.”

Additionally, the committee hopes that the workshops this year will be well-received by the student population.

“I, along with the rest of the committee, am confident that Mr. Forté and Mr. Stevenson will be powerful speakers,” upper Kevin Zhen, a student member of the planning committee, said. “Bryan Stevenson gave a phenomenal TED talk on incarceration, and John Forté will be discussing his experience in prison and songwriting in Russia.”

But Forté said he was unsure of how much of an impact it will have, since “it is really up to student body at this point,” Forté said. “I don’t know how much of the campus has been part of this. I read that there was a Die-In that was initiated on campus, and I thought that was incredibly proactive and responsible.”

Forté hopes that his assembly will help stimulate discussion all across campus regarding these issues.

“If the remarks that I make can somehow lead to more conversation that can go in the direction of policy, then that is my goal, and my responsibility as an artist,” he said.

Although the committee has put in a lot of work to try and make this year’s events culturally relevant, not all members of the student body are convinced that it will be sufficient. Senior Tori Huit is not certain that the committee and the student body at large are doing enough to acknowledge what is happening right now in the United States.

"I think it’s easy, particularly for young people, to think that we are experiencing a wave of great change—that this is the turning point, this is the second wave of the Civil Rights movement."

“I think it’s easy, particularly for young people, to think that we are experiencing a wave of great change—that this is the turning point, this is the second wave of the Civil Rights movement. It’s easy for us to think in grandiose terms like that,” Huit said. “But I think it’s definitely possible that this doesn’t result in that much. I hope that that’s not true, but I think it’s entirely possible that this is a few months of young people being really active and talking about fighting against racism and then getting tired, and all of that anger and rage being replaced inevitably by exhaustion.”