Students consider 'The Right to Dream'

COEUR d'ALENE - How important are the rights and the dignity of others? Is it important enough to risk your life?

Fifth-grade students in Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls learned about people who responded affirmatively to those challenges during the 27th annual Human Rights Celebration on Friday at North Idaho College.

While the bulk of the program featured an interactive play on the 1960s civil rights movement, both the presenter and moderators reminded students that respecting and helping those who are bullied or discriminated against remains important today.

"If we see others put down, we have a responsibility to take a stand, in our words and in our actions," said Sharon Hanson, principal at Borah Elementary, during her introduction to the play.

Dior Davenport, a performance artist with The Living Voices group of Seattle, presented "The Right to Dream," a 45-minute program that combined audio and video footage of civil rights demonstrations in Mississippi and Alabama with the fictional story of Ruby Hollis.

Before portraying Hollis, Davenport asked students about Rosa Parks and explained that her refusal to give up her seat to a white bus rider sparked a bus boycott, sit-ins and demonstrations which ultimately led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

"As you're watching, think about what would be important enough for you to fight for," Davenport said.

The play portrayed how blacks like Ruby were forced to attend separate schools, endured segregated public facilities like movie theaters and lunch counters, and were prevented from voting due to unevenly applied voter registration tests.

As Ruby grows up in the 1950s and 1960s, she becomes involved in SNCC - the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee - which organized civil rights protests throughout the South and helped fund black voter registration drives.

Ruby's family members and friends are woven into the history of the civil rights movement, and the play concludes with Ruby's father, a World War II combat veteran, being killed back in his Mississippi hometown after he marched from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965.

While Ruby mourns for her father, she also is proud that "he did not die as a broken man."

Friday's program included a musical interpretation of the song, "Don't Laugh at Me," by 19 students from Skyway Elementary School.

The song tells the story of kids who have been bullied or embarrassed by being different, said Teri Hamilton, the Skyway physical education teacher who directed the performance.

Friday's event, held each year in conjunction with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, is co-sponsored by the school districts, the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, the Human Rights Education Institute and North Idaho College.