Today was not a day “off”, but a day “on” as we celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We learned about King’s life and legacy through the sharing of stories and experiences in assembly and in advisory groups. As we listened, spoke, meditated, and explored, we wrestled with big questions. What if we, as an imperfect society, sought justice for the oppressed with the same conviction that those in power seek to stay in power? What if we took time to honestly reconcile the racism and oppression on which America was built? What if we, as individuals, made the conscious decision to choose love in our daily decisions?
Dean of Equity and Belonging Will Wamaru welcomed the community to assembly by framing our shared work through a lens of how our stories are shaped by events in our lives and by the communities in which we spend our time. Dean of Faculty Lori Patriacca ‘01 shared perspective on the recency of the Civil Rights Movement within the context of our lives, noting the work of Proctor students in the 1990s to push the State of New Hampshire to finally adopt Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a state holiday in 2000 (the last state to do so). Theater faculty Charley Stern ‘09 followed with a powerful recitation of a passage highlighting the “Stranger’s Case” from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More, and Head of School Brian Thomas offered his thoughts on King’s underlying message of acceptance and fighting against feeling “othered” in his speech he gave to a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967. Faculty members Scott King and Amy Mathison then shared a beautiful, powerful song rooted in lyrics from King’s speeches before we welcomed Chris Allen ‘12 back to campus as the keynote speaker.
As Chris took the stage, he seamlessly wove together the strands of each piece of the morning’s assembly through the sharing of his own story. Raised on the southeast side of Washington, DC, Chris arrived at Proctor as a ninth grader hungry for the experiences the school would provide, and fully aware of the privilege that came with the opportunity to be here. He talked about being exposed to different types of people, to new sports and activities, to learning about rap music from the most unlikely of friends, finding a home in Proctor’s recording studio, at Elbow Pond, and in the friends who saw him for who he could be, not where he came from. As he spoke, our student body began to see pieces of themselves in Chris.
A professional musician who is in the process of launching his own record label and recording studio with the aim of increasing access to the music industry to those farthest from opportunity, Chris implored each of us to dream out loud and to share that which we too often hold to ourselves with those around us. It is in those moments of dreaming out loud that we begin to see in ourselves the same potential others see in us.
It is in this space of dreaming out loud that we have the opportunity to impact the world around us, and that we begin to believe that our life has ultimate significance. Our role as educators is to kindle the unborn flicker of hope that lives in each of our students, a hope that too often can be extinguished because of injustice, unbelief, or stereotypes. It is a hope that allows us to see and love and appreciate the full humanity of others, to not necessarily know what it feels like to walk in their shoes, but to acknowledge that it is not the same as our shoes. It is a hope that recognizes that that which we do for the most marginalized in this world, we do for all of us. It is a hope that sees through hypocrisy and empty words and teaches us to love unconditionally. Today, that hope was nourished on many levels.
Thank you to all who made today’s celebration of MLK Jr. Day so powerful, and especially to Chris Allen ‘12 for reminding us to dream out loud, regardless of how old we might be!
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