Ask any baby boomer where they were when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and they can recall who they were with, what they were doing and probably what they were wearing.
But to their children, King is just another historical figure. A name in a textbook, someone you learn about in school, maybe a local street name.
Yet for some Oakland teens, including members of Temple Sinai, King is coming alive.
For the past couple months, about a dozen Oakland teens have been reading King’s speeches, watching videos and discussing his teachings. Their goal is to make the civil-rights leader’s philosophy part of their daily lives and to bring that message to other teens in the community.
Their first step is orchestrating a citywide interfaith service celebrating King’s birthday on Sunday, Jan. 19 at Temple Sinai.
Although the service has been organized under the auspices of the Oakland Coalition of Congregations and Oakland Interreligious Council, it is directed and performed entirely by teenagers. This is the first time in the history of either group that teens have been given full responsibility for the service.
“We’re trying to include many religions and trying to get to people in different ways,” says Ari Leiderman, 16, a Sinai member. “There’s song, dance, meditation, prayer and dramatic portrayals.”
Adds Manwe Sauls-Addison, 16, a member of Oakland’s Beth Eden Baptist Church, “It’s always a good idea to pass the baton down to the younger generation and let us take off on it.”
That’s just what the teens have done, coming up with a program as diverse as the population of the city itself — and that of the OCC’s 25 congregations.
A youth-run service means no sermon, and clergy speaking time will be limited. Rabbi Samuel Broude and Cantor Ilene Keys of Temple Sinai, along with the Rev. Gillette James of Beth Eden Baptist Church and the Rev. Tom Parris of the Greek Orthodox Church, are the only clergy set to speak.
“The OCC really want the kids’ ideas,” says Leiderman. “They took our ideas and helped figure out how to present them effectively.”
The event will be “innovative but still sacred,” says Catherine Coleman, director of the OCC. “It’s more energetic than the usual worship service.”
Sauls-Addison, a student at San Francisco’s School of the Arts, along with four others, will perform a dance choreographed by Elvia Martha to the song “Return to Innocence” by the band Enigma.
Working with such a varied religious group has been a first-time experience for most of the teens.
“It’s fascinating to see how similar we are and, I think, that’s what the point of the service is,” says Leiderman, who observes parallels between African-American and Jewish experiences.
Like African Americans, “Jews are persecuted, not understood and socially outcast,” he says.
Leiderman and other organizers say they were impressed to see a shared interest in improving the quality of life and relations between different races and religions.
He hopes the event will “rejuvenate and reinfuse [King’s] message with new relevance for today’s life.”
That’s what the OCC is hoping as well.
“We want young people to realize that [King] was very human and that what he worked for is not dead and past and that it’s still relevant today,” says Coleman.
“Hopefully it will make people think, if these kids can do it, we can too…”