Coeur D’Alene High Schools Hold Low-Key Events For King Day Today’s A School Holiday, Averting Walkout Like That Of 1995

Unlike last year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day, students at Coeur d’Alene High School won’t be practicing civil disobedience today.

That’s because this year, they have the day off.

Instead of observing the holiday on King’s birthday today, students paid their respects last week with a moment of silence, a broadcast of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and a little music.

Last year, students went to school and some walked out when King’s contributions to equal rights were not recognized.

But some doubted the students’ sincerity.

“The meaning wasn’t behind it,” said the high school’s Human Equality Club president, Steve Steading. “It was more they wanted the day off from school.”

School officials said the decision to take a holiday on the civil rights leader’s birthday this year had nothing to do with the students’ walkout last year.

It had more to do with the fact that this school year, Veterans Day fell on a Saturday. That meant school officials didn’t have to choose between the two holidays when scheduling the school calendar.

Interest in the Human Equality Club was at an all-time high after 150 students staged their protest last year.

But the interest was short-lived.

Last week, nearly no one showed up for an organizational meeting to plan for the holiday events, Steading said.

Just the same, King’s peaceful struggle for equality did not go unnoticed. Steading and the few die-hard members of the club made sure of that.

Students watched the video “Eyes on the Prize” about Martin Luther King Jr. during lunch time; King’s famous speech was read over the intercom Thursday; and the high school choir performed “Abraham, Martin and John” in honor of King during Friday’s pep assembly.

Also at the assembly, which was devoted primarily to that evening’s basketball game against Lake City High School, Steading asked for a moment’s silence to reflect on the slain civil rights leader.

Amid whispers and giggles that drifted over the gymnasium bleachers during that time was the question, “What’s going on?”

Across town at Lake City High, the human rights club was having even bigger organizational problems. Last year’s club president went to Germany, and no one shouldered the responsibility in her absence.

“I think we had one meeting at the beginning of the year, but it just kind of fizzled,” said Molly Gerber, a club member.

Last year, the school had a special assembly on Martin Luther King Jr. Day featuring a Hispanic dance group from Post Falls.

This year, a teacher recruited Gerber to distribute multicolored ribbons to students on Friday. She and her friends spent $94 in school money for 600 yards of ribbon, which they clipped and passed around in classrooms.

“The ribbons are our way of showing support for racial and cultural harmony,” Gerber told her classmates, who tied them in their hair, on clothing and around their wrists and ankles.

During the same class period Friday, students all watched “Eyes on the Prize” and listened to an essay on civil rights delivered by student Jaqueline Hanna over the intercom.

In addition to the holiday events, social studies and history teachers in nearly all grade levels spend time teaching about the civil rights movement - but not necessarily in January.

When students walked out of Coeur d’Alene High last year, “I was kind of skeptical,” Gerber said. “If they had been out of school, they would have just gone skiing and never thought about Martin Luther King.”

But senior Willy Miller, who led last year’s walkout, said the point was to draw attention to King’s life - not to get out of school.

Even he didn’t expect the event to necessarily have a lasting impact, he said.

“We sort of got the community to realize it’s an important day,” said Miller, who is student body president this year and not very involved in the Human Equality Club.

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