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Here are some photos from the Sunday commemoration.
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Please visit our site and click "Like"!
Here are some photos from the Sunday commemoration.
Almost 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Lexington High School about the importance of diversity, the town’s CommUNITY group will hold a MLK Day walk and a program of celebrating King’s life and legacy and highlighting the diversity of Lexington schools.
Read more: Marking MLK's visit to Lexington High - Lexington, MA - Lexington Minuteman http://www.wickedlocal.com/lexington/news/x1058232536/Marking-MLKs-visit-to-Lexington-High#ixzz2IVkr9UuV
An interesting article on the Boston Globe which is related to the topic of our 2013 Commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ( Recommended by Mr. Charlie Martin, a member of Lexington CommUnity Group).
Lexington’s 20th Annual CommUNITY Commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and legacy will be honored on Sunday, January 20th, from 1:30 to 4:00 PM with a special program highlighting and celebrating the history of diversity in the Lexington Public Schools (LPS).
The program will open with Robert J. Harris, Assistant Superintendent of LPS Human Resources, as well a panel of current LPS educators: Melissa Buttaro, Lexington High School (LHS) Guidance Counselor; William Cole, former dean and current LHS teacher; and Ann Kim Tenhor, Instructional Technology Specialist in the elementary schools. All of the panelists received the Sharyn Wong-Chan/Sara Harrington Diversity Award (sponsored by the Chinese-American Association of Lexington, or CAAL, and the Diversity Task Force of the Lexington School Department) for their remarkable diversity work in our schools. Malik Alfred, LHS 2012 graduate, former METCO Scholar and currently a student at Dean College, will join the panel discussion to share his unique perspective on the issue of diversity in the Lexington Public Schools. The MLK Day program will also include musical selections presented by the Bowman Elementary School Chorus.
|In honor of the 300th anniversary of Lexington’s founding, the program will seek to present an understanding of how the town’s historical demographic changes and attitudes have shifted to create the community of families, educators and administrators represented in our schools today. Through a historical lens, participants will share how dedication to promoting diversity has become a pillar of the Lexington Public Schools. In addition, the panelists will each share how they have brought diversity into the work they do in Lexington’s schools and talk about the issue from their personal and professional perspective and experience. There will be an interactive opportunity for questions and answers from the audience.
The CommUNITY Commemoration begins at 1:30 pm with a walk from the Lexington Battle Green to Cary Hall, 1605 Massachusetts Avenue. The indoor program will begin promptly at 2:00 pm. Participants are invited to join the walk and/or attend the program at Cary Hall, which is wheelchair accessible and will be open starting at 1:30pm. Admission is free and all are welcome. For further information contact Jill Smilow at [email protected].
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education”.
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sunday, January 15, 2012 1:30 – 4:00 pm
The CommUNITY Commemoration program will feature the award-winning film Come Walk in My Shoes, a documentary that follows U.S. Rep (D-GA) John Lewis on an emotional pilgrimage to the churches, parks and bridges where young people played a pivotal role in the struggle for equality and voting rights. At each location, Lewis reflects on his experiences and provides a forum for others – the “unsung heroes who cared deeply, sacrificed much, and fought hard for a better America” – to help us understand what happened, and why.
Congressman Lewis said of the experience: “No one wanted to be chased by dogs. No one wanted to be beaten or arrested. That was the price people paid to liberate the South. When young people tell me that nothing has changed, I say to them, “Come walk in my shoes!” This moving documentary provides a fresh, first-person perspective on the non-violent protests that challenged segregation laws in the South and led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
The program is designed for students, parents and teachers as well as members of the Lexington community who wish to learn more about the impact that young people, in particular, had on the civil rights protests in the South in the 1960s. Also participating in the program will be the First Church of Belmont’s Minster Emeritus Rev. Victor Carpenter, one of the many members of the clergy inspired by Dr. King’s call to travel south to Selma and march for civil rights. He has published articles and reviews in a variety of news media magazines and journals and is the author of the1982 Minns Lectures, The Black Empowerment Controversy and the Unitarian Universalist Association, and, Stations of Spirit, in 1990. At the conclusion of the film Rev. Carpenter will engage the audience in discussion.
The program will include musical selections by the Harrington School Chorus directed by Music Teacher Holly Stumpf. The CommUNITY Commemoration begins at 1:30 pm with the traditional CommUNITY Walk from the Lexington Battle Green to Cary Hall, 1605 Massachusetts Avenue. The indoor program will begin promptly at 2:00 pm. Participants are invited to join the walk and/or attend the program at Cary Hall, which is wheelchair accessible and will be open starting at 1:30pm. Admission is free and all are welcome. For further information contact Jill Smilow: [email protected]
Thursday, May 19th from 7 – 9 PM: Depot Square, Lexington, MA
This month’s edition of “OPEN HOUSE with Representative Jay Kaufman” will be a special two-hour look at “A Conversation About Race” and will be held from 7 to 9 PM in the historic Depot (13 Depot Square) in Lexington Center on Thursday, May 19th. The program is free and open to the public. Depot Square is wheelchair accessible.
Continue reading "Representative Jay R. Kaufman’s OPEN HOUSE: “A Conversation on Race”" »
James DeWolf Perry and Katrina Browne who appear in Browne's PBS documentary, "Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North." had an op-ed "Civil War's dirty secret about slavery" up at CNN.com on April 12th.
If you are interested in the documentary and conversation with James and others, please check our Calender of Events!
Due to the inclement weather, the following adjustments have been made to the CommUNITY Calendar of Events in February. Please share this information as needed.
Tuesday, February 8th from 7:00 -9:00 pm: “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North”; Screening at Saint Brigid Parish, Kielty Hall, 2001 Massachusetts Avenue.
Please join CommUNITY, the Lexington Interfaith Clergy Association and St. Brigid's Parish for the next screening of "Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” the thought-provoking documentary about the Bristol, RI DeWolf Family's slave-trading past. The film explores historical aspects of colonial and early US involvement with "triangle trade" as it also raises issues of modern society.
This is the film trailer.
What is slavery's impact on race relations today? What are the aspects of privilege, and how do we address these issues and discuss our respective thoughts in our local communities? How does slavery tie into the wider topic of immigration reform and today's political and moral issues of our country's increasingly ethnic/cultural diversity?
Here's the nice piece on Lexington Patch about our Sunday event.
Please visit LexingtonPatch site for the full text and photo gallery.