On January 21, one day after the rest of the nation observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Deerfield community came together in a keynote address, question and answer session, and a series of workshops and musical performances with a specific goal in mind: to deliberate on the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement from a fresh perspective.
This year, the Inclusion Committee reframed Deerfield’s approach to the federal holiday, celebrating the work of female Civil Rights leaders instead of well-recognized male activists. The school invited a female keynote speaker, Brown University Professor Dr. Keisha Blain, for the first time in Dean of Inclusion and Community Life Steven Lee’s four years at Deerfield. Mr. Lee commented, “I thought it was important to learn about the role that Black women played in the Civil Rights Movement…female activists who don’t receive a lot of attention in comparison to major male figures like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.”
Drawing from her background as a scholar and social justice advocate, Dr. Blain delivered a speech entitled “‘Try to Do Something:’ The Ongoing Fight for Equity and Inclusion.” From sharecropping to sterilization to Freedom Farm, she connected touch points and issues in American activist Franny Lou Hamer’s life to modern-day advocacy.
Dr. Blain’s keynote address opened many people’s eyes to overshadowed stories of the Civil Rights Movement. “One of my biggest takeaways was that the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t just about one or two people; it really was more than just that,” Rory Hartblay ’26 said. “It seems like Dr. Blain was painting this picture that the Civil Rights Movement really was also a women’s movement, but they didn’t really get their time to shine in it. One of my biggest takeaways was having the ability to dig deeper and not just go with the story that’s on the surface.”
Skye Georgiadis ’25 reflected this sentiment, saying, “I really enjoy the perspective that she [Dr. Blain] gave, where she talked away from MLK and she uplifted voices that were shadowed in the past…She really recognized the legacy of not only Martin Luther King, but also of all Black voices during the Civil Rights Movement.
The Inclusion Committee restructured this year’s MLK Day programming in several other major ways as well; notably, an extended Q&A session for juniors and seniors and a new tenth-grade workshop replaced the elective workshops of previous years. “I actually made the decision not to offer elective workshops. Last year, we offered over 40 workshops. And I love the diversity of experiences that these workshops created for our community,” Mr. Lee said. “The challenge with that model, though, is that it’s a really heavy lift for some of our adults at a busy time of the term because I require every elective workshop to include a faculty member.”
The fifteen faculty members on the Inclusion Committee had concluded that teachers, in line with the Academic Affairs Office’s new policy, would be too busy writing midterm comments to organize elective workshops. Mr. Lee said, “It was a hard decision because we didn’t have the same variety of workshops this year, and students didn’t have as much choice in the programming.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Lee acknowledged how the extended, hour-long Q&A had allowed a greater number of students to “ask more questions and probe deeper beyond her [Dr. Bain’s] keynote address.” Hartblay, who asked a question during the Q&A, said, “Overall, I liked it a lot better. Last year…I enjoyed my workshop, but I think I got a lot more out of hearing from Dr. Blain and what she had to say.”
Many students and faculty favored this shift from elective workshops to more comprehensive, grade-wide programming. “Thumbs up to the change,” Inclusion Committee Member Jim Perry said. “We really wanted a coherent way to approach the ninth graders, a coherent way to approach the 10th graders, and a coherent and developmentally appropriate way to approach the 11th and 12th graders.”
This year’s MLK Day was also the first in three years to feature a longer performing arts component in the afternoon, including the Black national anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and “We Shall Overcome.” “The first year that I was here, our MLK Jr. Day program had a significant arts component–Steven Tejada’s one-person dramatic piece. Ever since that performance, I’ve wanted to incorporate another arts component, but I wasn’t able to for the past two years–partly for budgetary reasons and partly because of scheduling reasons,” Mr. Lee said. “So this year I worked with Mr. Pfitzer and Mr. Bergeron to make sure that we included a multi-piece chorus performance in the afternoon portion of our program.”
Since last spring, the Inclusion Committee has met regularly, including in joint meetings with student alliance leaders, to craft a new tenth-graders-only workshop dealing with Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and philosophy. Mr. Lee said, “I’m hoping that, moving forward, we can retain the new 10th Grade Martin Luther King workshop as a permanent part of our annual program…Even though our juniors take US History, a lot of students don’t necessarily have a great knowledge of King’s era. This event expands that knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement.”
The Inclusion Committee aims to approach MLK Day from a different angle each year to expose students to many perspectives. In prior years, MLK Day programming had centered around modern-day impacts of the Civil Rights Movement and the life, legacy, and history of Dr. King and Malcolm X. “When we’re able to step back and look at that long term arc, it allows us to think about the programming of one year in conjunction with another year in conjunction with another year…you can see the total package,” Inclusion Committee Member Abe Wehmiller said. “The goal is multiple perspectives over an arc of time.”
The team also hopes MLK Day events will equip Deerfield students with a broader, multifaceted understanding of the historical period. Inclusion Committee Member Julia McClellan said, “The goal is to have kids leave with fodder to continue conversation.” Mr. Perry added, “As an Inclusion Committee, we had several conversations about the makeup of the people that we typically highlight on this day. We hope to educate students that it wasn’t just Dr King…that there were other people involved, and especially this year, that there were women involved.”
Many students and faculty appreciate the Tuesdays that Deerfield sets aside every year to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr., his legacy, and the history of the Civil Rights Movement. “It’s important in the life of a school to take a moment to pause and reflect on things that have great meaning,” Mr. Wehmiller said. “And I think this is one of the few days that we have built into the busy rhythms of this place where we get a chance to do that.”
Mr. Perry also highlighted the value of this weekday in commemorating MLK and the historical contexts around his activism. He said, “Today wasn’t a lost educational day. It’s not a day that you subtract from the school calendar because no learning took place. It’s a day that you circle on the calendar because a lot of learning took place.”
Mr. Wehmiller recognized how Frannie Lou Hamer’s stories shed a different, more localized light on the movement compared to studying MLK. “I hope people…understand how that movement is broader than any one single person or small group of people,” he said. “A movement, by definition, requires mass participation, and so there are so many individualized, localized, personal stories that are out there that I think could have great meaning for people to dig into and discover.”
Taking one step further, Mr. Perry advocated for Deerfield to recognize additional marginalized communities whose stories haven’t been fully explored, including indigenous and Latinx peoples. “The main narrative of America is not complete without those other narratives, and so I’m not ceding time for the Black narrative to be explored, but I’m also saying there’s space, room, and opportunity for us to explore those other narratives and to stress to our student body how important they are,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that next month, we can’t circle another day and talk about another fabric of American society whose stories haven’t been told. We’ve got plenty of days that we could circle.”
