The Black Student Union organized this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Assembly, Jan. 17.
Senior Sigourney McWilson, who was one of the main planners for this event, says that the goal of the assembly was to reconnect the core message of the holiday while incorporating diverse elements.
“Even though we hear the same stuff every year, it’s still important to be reminding students and building it up,” McWilson said. “So, this year, we wanted to feature ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ which was one of the songs they sang when they would do their marches protesting racial discrimination.”
Many students find these assemblies to be boring because they often involve sitting through speeches and historical recounting, which might not sound entertaining to most. Black Student Union kept this issue in mind when organizing the event.
Sophomore and BSU member Mirabel Brobbey was a part of this process.
“I feel like encouraging people to take notes and do trivia related to him was a great idea to get people to know about him and even think about him on the day off,” Brobbey said.
Sophomore Lucas Panek says the assembly definitely hit the goal set by BSU.
“I think that this year was more interesting just because it was more interactive, and it wasn’t all just sitting and listening,” Panek said
While BSU wanted the assembly to be engaging, they also hoped it would have an impact on students, and McWilson says she believes they accomplished more of an impact.
“I think we’ve been consistently honoring MLK, but definitely I think we had a lot more engagement with this assembly,” McWilson said. “We were featured on the school district newsletter, so I feel like it’s had more of a reach, and therefore, I guess it’s had more of an impact.”
Meanwhile everyone connects with Martin Luther’s message in their own unique ways Brobbey says it was important for her to help spread the message of MLK.
“I feel like I really wanted to help out because it’s such a momentous moment for Black history in general,” Brobbey said. “I also wanted to be part of helping make a change.”
Panek says that the assembly this year was more entertaining and that he paid attention and learn something.
“There was a lot of parts of the assembly that really kept me thinking about social justice and how [MLK] really helped so many people,” Panek said.
McWilson says that BSU spent time looking at the feedback from last year when making decisions about this year.
“[Last year’s assembly] was just a little too detached from MLK, so we wanted to relay it back to him,” McWilson said. “But also have a more variety of things to keep people engaged. We had that T-shirt rocket, and we had the orchestra singing and poetry a lot of student creativity involvement definitely made the assembly interesting.”
