Adut Malwal is only 10, but she has a clear way to explain the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“If someone said hate, he said love,” she said, her eyes glinting with thought under her black-framed glasses. “I think the definition of the word ‘peace' describes him.”
The pastor turned civil rights movement hero urged a nonviolent shift toward equality for all, delivering a message of respect that has echoed long beyond his 39 years on Earth. King was assassinated in 1968, more than 30 years before Adut and her schoolmates were born. In schools around the country, children are taught his words of equality.
“At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love.”
Adut is a fifth-grader at Indian Hill Elementary in south Omaha. She said the school at 31st and U Streets is one where kids stick together — and stick up for each other. She was worried in the fall that she'd be picked on, like she was at another school. But it's not like she thought.
To ensure that the posters all over the school encouraging respect don't lose their luster, the school's administrators decided that the week the nation honors King's contributions was the perfect time for students to be reminded to live with respect.
The school will spend this week proving that it is “No Place for Hate.” Lessons about respect for individuals, their peers, their school and their community will fill each day when students return to school Tuesday. On Thursday evening at 6, the entire community is invited to celebrate at the school's “Hopefest” in partnership with south Omaha Weed and Seed.
“We want you to grow up to be people of good character,” Principal Sharon Royers told the 270 students in grades three through six on Friday, King's actual birthday. She reminded them of King's message of “loving and living in peace together.”
The assembly gave students the chance to see the local RESPECT2 theater group perform, then discuss how to recognize and stop bullying of all types — from name-calling to exclusion to physical abuse. Students were reminded that they have the power to help a friend who is being bullied — or a friend who bullies and needs to change his or her ways. King's words drive home the message, and the Indian Hill kids are quick to tell you what they've learned.
“Life's most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?'”
Rene Macias, 9, knows it's important to help people. He'll lend a pencil if someone asks nicely. And when his brother and his father went on a trip recently, he cleaned his brother's room “so when he comes back it will be clean.”
Rene, a fourth-grader, speaks softly. He said he doesn't often think about how to be respectful, he just does it.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Don't call people names. Don't pick on anybody. Don't make fun of them. Those are sixth-grader Rudy Cid's personal rules. “If you respect them, they'll respect back to you,” the 11-year-old said. That's why he said he doesn't talk back to his parents and shares his Xbox 360 with his brothers.
Asked about the most respectful thing someone had done for him, he thought for a minute and told of a neighbor who cleared his family's sidewalk after recent snow. That was wonderful, he said, because it meant he and his older brother didn't have to shovel and could play instead.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Maria Rios-Ramirez, 9, says please and thank you and tries to do her chores without being asked. Those things show respect for her mother and others around her, the third-grader said.
“It feels good” to give respect and receive it, Maria said. Once, she recalled with a smile, her big sister, Erika, helped her clean her room. Just because. Maria remembered her sister's kindness as a show of respect.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Adut said she knows what it's like to feel different. People have made fun of her, she said, because of her neighborhood and her appearance.
“It hurts, like I'm unwanted,” she said. Her family is Sudanese, and she said she is close with her two brothers and her sister, who all stick up for one another if they are picked on outside of school. But now at school, she said, she feels “kindness and love.”
Contact the writer:
444-1037, michaela.saunders@owh.com
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