Even you, can be a King

9.10.10 By Stephen Yang

On April 4, 2008 I was nestled in the front pew of of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA when the Rev. Bernice King approached her father’s former pulpit with the glorious confidence of a national hero.  The young King took her audience on a tour of her father’s legacy, reminding us with the heightening rhetoric of a seasoned Baptist preacher, that the onus was on us to carry her father’s dream towards the Promised Land.  “Even you,” Bernice declared as her voice faded into a whisper, “can be a King.”

The bustling hallways of Charlestown and the voices of young people trying to create a new identity in an alien social environment brings me back to Bernice’s message.  For in every interaction with my students, even when I have to give them “the look” for flipping the bird while my mentor and I lead an activity on respect, or remind them of their inherent goodness when they respond to my prompts with “oh, no you don’t mister,” I remember, “even you, can be a King.”

Yesterday, a rambunctious student sat down and wrote a letter addressed to my mentor and me.  In it, he succinctly captured his fears and dreams about his final year in high school:

“I grew up in a community deprived of money, and where a lot of gang violence goes on…I go to Charlestown High School, which isn’t the best school but you take what you make out of the school experience.  In life, I just want to be successful.  Live the dreams that my mom and other family members [have for me].  But during my life I been [through] a couple stumbles on my trip.  Sometimes I feel in my life that I’m on the brink of going down a path I shouldn’t follow.  Those paths and decisions will make the gap between a boy and man.  Hopefully I will pass that bridge.”

These days, we talk a lot about the achievement gap, but what this student’s letter reveals is that he desperately wants to close the gap between where he is and where he knows he ought to be.  He, like so many of his peers, has found effective ways, as a result of great trials and tribulations, to discredit and sequester his potential.  I can’t celebrate the completion of my first week yet because I go to bed knowing that at least one of my students has not left the Charlestown High School building on Friday afternoon feeling as if his ELA classroom is a place he can conceptualize his value in our society.  Will our class empower him enough this year so that he will feel confident to “pass that bridge?” Will he fulfill his mother’s dream for him? How can I help him do that? What does it look like?

These, I am beginning to see, are some of the essential questions that drive the BTR cycle of inquiry.  I welcome the challenge, but I know, that if I am to make real on Bernice’s proclamation, that even I can be a King, I must first empower my people.