Students Share Dreams While Honoring King

VAN NUYS —  Sometimes it takes absurdity to make a point.

Take fifth-grader Steven Vernet’s humorous spin on the otherwise serious issue of racial discrimination raised at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day program Friday at Laurence 2000 School.

A green-skinned space alien writes in his journal that he is angry over being treated like a second-class citizen by humans.

“Everybody is always so prejudiced against me because I’m an Alien American and I have green skin,” he says. “I have to sit on the back of the bus, use dirty water fountains and I even have to use a different door than everybody else. I feel like I have no point in living.”

Then the alien gets an idea: “Hey, maybe I’ll give a big speech and change everybody’s feelings about green-skinned Alien Americans. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.”

Vernet’s story was among several presentations made by students at the private school to commemorate the civil rights leader whose birthday will be officially observed Monday.

Another fifth-grader, Dash Borinstein, writing from the perspective of a person being discriminated against, offered his take on racial prejudice.

“I don’t know why everyone is prejudiced against me,” he wrote. “When every time I go some place everyone just kicks me out. Kids also make fun of me in sad ways like, ‘Hey, here’s a strange kid’ or ‘You’re different.’ ”

To stop everyone from “being mean and [rude] to me, I’m going to try to say to people that I am a person, an 8-year-old kid who’s very lonely and sad. I want peace and happiness.”

At the celebration, students used journal entries, poetry, artwork and music to mark what would have been the Baptist preacher’s 70th birthday.

A group of kindergarten and sixth-grade students told of how Stevie Wonder’s 1981 song “Happy Birthday” stirred people of diverse backgrounds to press Congress to declare King’s birthday a national holiday. The bill was signed into law by President Reagan in 1983.

A first-grade class recalled how King, as a 5-year-old, was told by his family he could no longer play with his best friend who was white because they lived in the segregated South.

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Other students remembered King’s leadership of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, delivery of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the march on Washington in 1963, receipt of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964 and his tragic death in Memphis in 1968.

“Our school believes so deeply that all human beings are important, and that’s why we celebrate children’s birthdays, heroes’ birthdays and any other person we consider important,” school founder and director Marvin Jacobson said after the program.

“We involved all children in the program today,” he said. “We want them to learn early on to be concerned about other people, and Martin Luther King certainly showed that.”

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King Holiday Closings

Monday is the official celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Here is a list of closings:

* Mail: All post offices will be closed and no mail will be delivered.

* Banks: Most banks and savings and loan institutions will be closed.

* Courts: All courts will be closed.

* Schools: Most public schools in Los Angeles County, including schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, will be closed.

* Government: All federal, state, county and municipal offices, except those providing emergency services, will be closed.

* Transportation: MTA buses and Metrolink will follow daily schedules.

* Trash: Collection agencies will maintain regular pickup schedules.