The Stockton Unified School District’s African American/Black Parent Advisory Committee (AABPAC) and Extended Learning Opportunities Program (ELOP) hosted its third annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration at Delta on Jan. 17, three days before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“What we do is empower parents to be advocates for their students … They can actually push through the barriers that sometimes are created in the household with parenting and relationships, mental health,” said Karesha Boyd, vice president of the AABPAC and returning Delta student. “We just basically give them the resources to help their students thrive and accomplish their goals at the highest level possible.”
The theme for the event was “Dream Out Loud,” celebrating “different races, upbringings, backgrounds, traditions” according to ELOP director and the event emcee Mary Rogers.
“[Martin Luther King Jr.] dreamed out loud. He said his dream out loud where we can all hear it, and just for us to all be in the room where we’re all equal, where we’re sitting together, eating together, talking, laughing, interacting, loving on each other. That was a part of his dream,” said Rogers. “And being able to see that in this room was beyond inspirational.”
The celebration started with dinner from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Danner Hall. Stockton Unified School District’s Food Services and Catering Department brought in-house meals to serve hot for guests lining up at their table. Dishes included Cajun chicken, tri-tip steak, mac and cheese, peach crumble and more.
The Atherton Auditorium opened doors to guests after 4 p.m., where the Cesar Chavez High School Jazz Band was playing a pre-show.
The program started at 5 p.m., including introductions of the officers of ELOP, AABPAC, SUSD and Delta.
A Chavez vocalist and pianist also performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” or the “Black national anthem.”
The event directors’ segment of the program concluded with AABPAC’s recognition of High Five Awards for members of the community.
Student performances took over the program, starting with a poetry slam brought by Chavez, George W. Bush Elementary School and the Stockton-based With Our Words (WOW) Youth Poetry Collective. The poems referenced influential people to the civil rights movement like King, Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and more.
“To get here, it took a lot … All of the civil rights activists … these are people who took steps forwards to progress society,” said Giovonni Tilley, WOW poet and a student at Delta. “As we’ve gone on, we’ve sort of forgotten how it used to be. And if we forget that, we very well may go back to the way it was.”
Poets then moved into the crowd, shortly acting out a 1960s walk-in protest chant with Marshall Elementary School students as they marched back out across the theater alongside drummers. Marshall followed with a dance performance from the Marshall Steppers. Dances continued with be-bop to hip-hop from the KDC Dancers of Kennedy Elementary School.
The WOW poets came out for another slam about the hardships of King’s activist campaign for the civil rights movement. WOW poets joined female Chavez students for a slam about women that were figures in the Civil Rights movement including Josephine Baker and Coretta Scott King, acting out their memoirs. More Chavez students came out to perform a tap dance to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”
“We wanted to introduce a figure from our community as African Americans that paved the way not only for African Americans but for all people, because we need to remember — when black people fight, we open the doors for everyone,” said Boyd. “What they say, ‘equity is for all, equality is for all,’ and that’s what we’re looking for.”
All the program’s student performers came out to the stage, holding flags for each language represented by the SUSD. WOW poets gave speeches on hope in English, Spanish and Samoan while the other performers sang “We Are the World.”
The program ended with a prize raffle hosted by AABPAC.
“We are all a part of this timeless tapestry in the words of [Mable] ‘Jimi’ Choice. Our timeless tapestry, we’re all a part of it and we’re … different, but our similarities are so overlapping that we can actually see each other as humans and equals,” said Boyd.
