Warriors

Today I saw photos of the new Martin Luther King memorial in Washington DC. The memorial is set in a line between the Jefferson & Lincoln memorials, deliberately situating Dr. King within our official national narrative of individuals creating enormous changes. I grew up just across the river from that memorial beginning my life in a nation that still practiced apartheid. My (white) family refused to enter “Whites Only” businesses; we marched in Washington is support of civil rights (and in opposition to the war in Vietnam); my mother was shunned at church for registering African American voters; and I remember exactly where my dad and I stood when we heard on the radio that Martin Luther King was shot.

When I look at the photo of the Martin Luther King memorial a flood of images come to mind - Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, linked arm in arm leading a march in Alabama, handcuffed at the Selma police station.

But for me the image of the civil rights movement I find the most potent doesn’t feature Martin Luther King. It’s a snapshot of 9 high school kids carrying school books and dressed beautifully for their first day of school. They are walking, eyes averted, through a gauntlet of jeering students and adults. They became known as the Little Rock Nine – African-American students sent to integrate Central High School in 1957. The image scared and inspired me when I was a kid. And the image scares and inspires me now.

This January Portland Ovations presents Warriors Don’t Cry a one-woman play based on the memoirs of Dr. Melba Patillo Beals, one of the Little Rock Nine. In addition to evening and school-time performances, Ovations is collaborating with NAACP-Portland to present an excerpt of Warriors during the annual MLK Breakfast, partnering with King Middle School, A Company of Girls, Portland Public Library, and the Telling Room on a series of community and in-school workshops, and presenting a free pre-performance lecture on civil rights in Maine.

The Warriors Don’t Cry residency begins on Martin Luther King Day, January 16, 2012.