The ‘Doing of Justice’

“I hear freedom calling/Calling me to answer/Gonna keep on keepin’ on/I can feel it in my bones/I go to prepare a place for you,” Nife Joshua ’22 sang in Chapel on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The song Joshua shared, “Stand Up,” encapsulated St. Paul’s School’s Jan. 17 celebration of Dr. King’s life and work, and the journey an individual, community, or nation undertakes when responding to the call to right the wrongs of racism and social injustice.

Joshua’s musical offering followed a homily by The Rev. Paul Daniels II, assisting priest at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City. A theology doctoral student at Fordham University, Rev. Daniels is studying the work of Howard Washington Thurman, a prominent theologian, educator, and civil rights leader whose thinking influenced King. In his first MLK Day talk, Rev. Daniels echoed Thurman’s advice to “ask what makes you come alive and go do it” by posing his own question to the SPS community: “What do you love? … As much as we’re here to commemorate MLK, we’re here to think about the question of justice and begin to consider the question of love … The doing of justice is at the heart of what it means to mend the broken hearted, heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked. Justice is a verb. The doing of justice is the call of the gospel witness to which MLK dedicated his life.”

 

With a nod to King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, which was delivered with its prescient line “I may not get [to the promised land] with you” the day before his 1968 assassination, Daniels emphasized that “the realization of justice is varied. Sometimes it comes fast. Sometimes it comes slow. Sometimes it never comes. At least not in our lifetime here.”

 

Following Chapel, students viewed civil rights-focused documentaries and participated in group discussions. While Sixth Formers watched “My Name is Pauli Murray” and Fifth and Fourth Formers watched “The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306,” Third Formers gathered to view “Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story.” The documentary provides not only a glimpse at Thurman’s extraordinary life and context for King’s work, but it surfaces advice Thurman offered King after he was stabbed in 1958 and almost died. Take some time off and consider your role in the movement, Thurman suggested, before asking King: Where do you go from here?

 

After the screening, students in the group facilitated by Humanities teacher Deborah Vo and Science teachers Christopher Odom and Davies Cabot shared what they learned from the film. Two had never heard of Thurman, and others hadn’t realized his influence in general or his impact on King. Cole Fidler ’25 noted the impact that visiting India had on both Thurman and King, especially in shifting King’s view of non-violence from a tactic to a lifestyle.

 

The Third Formers with Chaplain Sam Lovett, German teacher Jennifer Hornor, and Science teacher Xin Chan described the film as insightful, inspiring, eye-opening as to just how much King endured, and hopeful.

 

“I learned that what you do in life is bigger than how you die,” said Lulu Mangriotis ’25, referring to King. “And Thurman, he had to try so hard for his educational opportunities, and we take ours for granted.”

 

Thad Lucentini ’25 observed that for most schools, MLK Day is a day off, but that days of programming dedicated to King’s legacy are important and a sign of the community’s strength when it comes to advancing toward equality and understanding.

 

The day ended as it began, in community, for a performance in Memorial Hall of “At the Table with Dr. King,” which used poetry, photos, videos, and King’s own words to show the man behind the cause while getting students on their feet and moving to the musical numbers.

 

Last fall, SPS welcomed 75 new students who identify as non-white, bringing the student body diversity level to 50 percent. Looking around at the audience after leading them in a finger-snapping call-and-response version of the gospel song “This Little Light of Mine,” performer Dave Lemieux said, “A room like this is the dream. Don’t wait for a better world to be brought to you, take someone else there. We’ve talked about call and response today — don’t forget that a lot of times, those who responded were students.”

 

After the performance, student leaders took to the stage to present about diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at SPS, explaining the work of the Student DEI Council and the Faculty DEI Council; the Transitions group, a student-led cross-cultural affinity space for students of color that meets biweekly for cultural celebrations, emotional support, networking and friendship; and a number of other affinity and alliance groups.

 

Chloe Abbruzzese ’22 noted the progress made in just her time at SPS, including the creation of the Student DEI Council and the expansion of affinity groups, as well as a LinC Day devoted to race, the hiring of a counselor of color, a stronger emphasis on DEI curriculum, and participation in the Student Diversity Leadership Conference and the Asian American Footsteps Conference, which SPS will host next year.

 

As the day’s programming wound down, the question Thurman asked King — that of where to go next — lingered. A response came from the students on stage, as they called their peers to be informed advocates, to listen to friends of color, to learn from mistakes made without being defensive, to use the lessons learned to speak out during difficult or uncomfortable situations.

 

In other words, as Joshua sang in Chapel at the beginning of the day: Stand up.