PEA Students Prepare for MLK Events

On the third Monday of every January, America remembers Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday. The day is set aside for people to celebrate the life and accomplishments of the extraordinary American civil rights leader. The Exeter community will gather on Friday, Jan. 12, not only to celebrate Dr. King, but to spend the day listening, learning and discussing race, justice and human equality on campus and beyond.

“Sometimes days like this can feel demoralizing because of the scary, tragic and overwhelming nature of a lot of these issues,”

This year, the events will focus on the barriers between groups and how, both on and off campus, students, faculty and staff can work to create a more inclusive society. After listening to a panel of speakers including this year’s keynote speaker, Lourdes Ashley Hunter—a transgender woman of color—students will participate in various workshops that will address topics pertaining to this theme. In response to student feedback, MLK Committee organizers said there will be more workshops than usual in order to keep them smaller and more interactive.

The organization of important events such as these is no small feat. Only two weeks after last year’s MLK Day, members of the MLK Day committee assembled to reflect on the day and the impact of its activities. “We discuss what we want to do differently and what emerged that we want to consider as we move into creating the program for the next year,” says Mercedes Carbonell, one of the chairs of this year’s board. As the board is composed of students and faculty, the ideas for improvement are diverse. For example, this year, students will be required to write a reflection about their experience on MLK Day as an assignment for English class. “I imagine these testimonies and reflections will inform what we envision next,” Carbonell said.

Senior and member of the MLK Day committee Maya Kim described the group’s weekly meetings to secure speakers. “This entails a bunch of research and reaching out to people as well as conversation on what the day means in the modern world,” Kim said.

In addition, the committee would like to focus on more “intentional work” within the community regarding racial divisions on and surrounding campus. This action, discussed at weekly meetings of the MLK committee, has already begun to take root. “We are bringing in speakers to Assembly or collaborating with other [presenters] for events on campus that center on questions of justice, human rights and race,” Carbonell said.

Upper Elizabeth Yang, a member of the MLK Day Committee, described this year’s goal. “With this year’s theme being ‘Walls, Borders and Boundaries’ especially, our assemblage of workshops covers various identity factors that create divides beyond just race, including socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, national origin and gender,” she said.

One of the recent assemblies was a student-led presentation that included a short video on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists. Subsequently, the students on stage gave alternating statistics and questions intended to enlighten the audience on the realities of racial injustice.

“Sometimes days like this can feel demoralizing because of the scary, tragic and overwhelming nature of a lot of these issues,” upper Mary Provencal-Fogarty, a participant in the presentation, said. “We wanted to offer the student body information that gave us lots of hope.”

Fellow participant and lower Janalie Cobb thought that the method used at the assembly this year was not as successful as in recent years. “Having students on stage reading what they’ve written or things they connect with, I thought, was extremely powerful last year. I don’t feel like reading statistics is necessarily the best way to get people thinking and talking, so it didn’t seem too motivational from my viewpoint,” she said. “Aside from that, I do think the video and our saying why we are on the committee worked very well.” Cobb ultimately hopes the presentation leads to more discussions about race and activism on campus.

Carbonell agreed, believing that students have “made it clear that they want more interactive discussions, more collaboration and more action.” She especially believes that workshop leader Lee Bebout (who was a consultant with faculty and staff on Thursday) will have an important message to impart to students.

“His essay, Skin in the Game, will be considered in ways that are generative, compassionate and critical,” Carbonell said. In the essay, Bebout asks readers to consider the role of education and educators in fostering a united and multiracial community.

With recent events talking about race here at Exeter, MLK Day will be important for each member of the community. “[This day] is important because there are students who care, who are mobilizing, who want to have open conversations, who are committed to justice, who are collaborating in beautiful ways,” Carbonell said. “My hope is we may all have a moment when something begins to shift within us, when questions are born about ‘Walls, Borders and Boundaries,’ when we consider more deeply our own role and responsibility, when those who have been silenced have a voice, when anger is heard or received with compassion.”

As members of the Exeter community gather this Friday for MLK Day, Carbonell and other members of the panel hope the interactive discussions, workshops and speakers will raise awareness of how racism still pervades today’s society and that students will take the ideas they learn to other areas of their life.

Yang reflected on the significance of the national holiday for the school, saying, “For Phillips Exeter, MLK [Day] effectively brings our community together to be introspective and address issues of inclusion and equity that continues to affect the student experience here.”

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