A civil rights advocate with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., will be reinforcing the call for tolerance and understanding this week and next as she tours around the Northwoods in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The federal holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America, and it’s a day kids and teachers revisit the timeline of one of America’s most influential civil rights leaders. Outreach director Lecia Brooks says it’s also a time to revisit his principles of tolerance and diversity and focus on racial equality, democracy and social injustice…
“…students and adults know little or nothing about the civil rights movement beyond the “King-Rosa Parks” narratives, and in Montgomery of course, we like to say is the birth place of the civil rights movement beginning the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 but then bookending with the voting rights march in ’65. There’s so much that happened in two decades….”
Brooks says if we hope to achieve Dr. King’s dream of an inclusive society, we need to reach outside the narrative limits and teach the younger generation to initiate positive political change
“…as that’s true with the civil rights movement and any other movement globally, it’s always driven by young people. So if we don’t explain that to our young people that they’re responsible for making change, then change won’t come about. So it really is our responsibility to do so.”
Brooks will be at Nicolet College January 15 and Rhinelander middle and high School January 16. For more information about Lecia Brooks and her work, visit splccenter.org.
The events are sponsored byNorthwoods Unitarian Universalist Fellowship church, Nicolet College and others.
