Martin Luther King III addresses students at Great Neck South High School, nearly 60 years after his father's visit
Nearly six decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a crowd at Great Neck South High School, his son took the same stage Thursday.
Martin Luther King III, speaking to high school students there, said as February marks Black History Month, “There are some in our nation who don't believe that we should engage in African American history."
“My position is that we need to be learning the history of all people because every ethnic group — not some, but every ethnic group — has made a contribution to our nation to make it what it is today,” he said.
King spoke Thursday to thousands of Great Neck students from grades 5-12, in sessions with remarks tailored to the different age groups. When speaking to fifth-graders, he related what happened after he complimented a hostile fellow student’s drawing: The boy stopped calling him names.
“Our relationship changed after that,” he recalled.
King encouraged the youngsters to be kind and to be their best selves to help create a better nation, noting the divisions in society.
With the high school students later in the day, he told them that some in the country have concluded that “being woke is wrong.”
“Now I would beg to differ, because the opposite of awake is asleep,” King said. “So do you want to just go along, or do you want to engage to create a positive experience for yourself, for your family and for generations yet unborn?”
In his remarks to students, King did not specifically mention President Donald Trump.
One of the flurry of executive orders the president has issued since taking office last month called for “ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling.” It singled out how race and gender are taught in schools and said the teaching of the country’s history should be grounded in an “unifying, inspiring and ennobling characterization of America’s founding” and “a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history.”
Another order ended diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal workforce and contracts.
“The federal government is dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion as if that's a problem,” King said in an interview with reporters. “You should promote diversity, not exclude, limit and suppress [it].”
Looking to the next generation
King's father spoke to about 1,000 people at Great Neck South High School on Sept. 29, 1967. It marked the third visit he made to Long Island that year.
Earlier that month, King Jr. had visited the Fire Island community of Seaview and in March, he addressed a rally with other civil rights leaders at Temple Beth-El in Great Neck.
During his speech at Temple Beth-El, he gave his view of two Americas, with “one flowing with the milk of opportunity and the honey of equality” and the other “America which transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair.”
A year later, King Jr. was assassinated. King III was 10.
After King finished his remarks Thursday, students chanted “MLK” and gave him thunderous applause. He was also presented with gift bags, including letters and artwork made by students, a district spokeswoman said.
Before King’s visit, Anaya Chaudhry, 14, read his picture book “My Daddy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
She said she was struck to learn the King family burned the toy guns that the children received as Christmas gifts.
“His father advocated for peace,” the eighth-grader said. “They burnt them to signify peace. And that was so symbolic, and it stood out to me how his father had a big impact on his life and how he probably took that with him as he went on in his life.”
Chris Fukuda, 18, a high school senior, asked King what steps students can take to “promote social justice and equality.”
King answered that his father was in his 20s when he led the Montgomery bus boycott.
“Whatever the next movement becomes, it's going to be determined by you as young people,” he said. “It's you guys that have to determine these are the issues.”
Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.
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