Congresswoman, Musical Group Help NCS Observe MLK Day

"Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth."

 

This was the message Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. heard one night in 1956, during the Montgomery bus boycott. And it was the heart of the message that National Cathedral School students heard from guests in two Jan. 16 assemblies tied to the holiday that honors King's birth.

 

In the Washington National Cathedral, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) urged students to "run toward service." King devoted his life to service, she reminded, so that "all of us could come out of the darkness."

 

"As I look at each and every one of you, I see girls and young women who the world is calling for to come to be a change maker," said Jackson Lee, a member of Congress since 1995. When you feel called to serve, she added, "You will not care who's in the way. You will not wonder what spotlight will be on you today or you will not wonder about the critic that will come and stand in the way.

 

Jackson Lee asked students to "take a pledge of unselfish service" and to recognize that "your real job is to figure out how you can best use the gifts that God has given you to make a better way."

 

That afternoon, students heard a similar message from the musical group At the Table With Dr. King. This Colorado-based group carries King's message forward in music, activities, and the late minister's own words.

 

Their assembly traced the path of the civil rights movement, from the Montgomery boycott to the March on Washington, and one memorable moment came when students were moved to charge out of the Schifter Court bleachers and begin their own march — standing up for justice and justice, and righteousness.