MLK Assembly
On Thursday January 15, 2016 Rainier Beach had an assembly which mourned the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the late Hamza Warsame. The assembly celebrated the 87th birthday of Dr. King and also mourned Hamza Warsame a kid whose death was proclaimed an accident. The assembly started off great it started off with Junior Khalil Shabazz who defended a boy because he was being bullied because he was white and Shabazz told the bully “What if I bullied you because you’re white would that make things any different” . The crowd gave him an standing ovation for his performance. But let’s not forget Sophomore Katera Howard who led a wonderful chant about freedom which got students chanting back. Nobody can forget her performance when she put on a show for the crowd, she danced and also she hit it one more time. That’s some serious Rainier Beach pride. And then clips were shown of when te Rainier Beach Freedom School marched and protested in downtown. They did it for the sake of their own school and for their community as well. The middle showed some speakers come in and discuss the death of Hamza Warsame who’s death was proclaimed a suicide according to the Seattle police. A student who attends Foster High School located in Tukwila, WA came in and talked about how he thinks “it’s not right to claim his death as a suicide because Hamza was never suicidal. He was always happy he just wanted to do great things”. Another person Ardo Hirsi also spoke out on Hamza Warsames death and talked about how racism could possibly play a role in this and how we can never let racism play a role in Hamza Warsames death. For now, all we can do is have faith and le Hamza rest in peace.
Now the next event shows point where poet Nikkita Oliver spoke out on being different and also on striving to do well in school because she never wanted to go down the wrong path. Did this make her any different? No but that her goals higher than anyone else’s at the time and it all paid off too. The students loved her speech and she’s a really great poet it was also nice for a change to see some former faces back here of who we all know and like.
Our second to last speaker was a man Gabriel Teodros who rapped about life, death pretty much society in general which was pretty cool and made a lot of since but most of the students didn’t see him as a rapper they saw him as a poet with his lyrical power and emphases on society. Last but not least there was Otieno Terry who’s singing about how one day we are going to be free and he also sang another inspirational song of bob Marley redemption which motivated students and teachers also encouraged them to do better in and out of school. And let’s not forget the girls who liked his so-called beautiful voice but he’s inspired us. And finally we thank the drama club for setting this all up because were pretty sure that we The Viking Shield News wouldn’t have written on this article in the first place so we thank you again for letting us be successful on what we do best.
