Catholic school students among MLK contest winners

By William T. Clew | The Catholic Free Press

Three Catholic school students were among the four essay contest winners at the 34th annual Worcester County Community Breakfast Jan. 21 honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Quinsigamond Community College.
Two of the winners are students at Holy Name Central Catholic Junior/Senior High School. They are Zenobia Turner, a senior whose topic was “Stand Up Even if You’re Alone,” and  Tyrese Belanis, a sophomore whose topic was “Our Movement.” Michael Klofft, an eighth-grader at St. Peter Central Catholic Elementary School, wrote on the topic “Let Freedom Ring for All Life.”
The fourth winner, Emma Robeau, an eighth-grade student at Sullivan Middle School, Goddard Scholars Academy, wrote on the topic “An End to Gun Violence.”
In the printed contest rules is a statement by Dr. King:
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
The question for the essayists was:
“Is there a stand that you want to take, or you have taken, at home or in the community, that is not popular but that you know is right?”
Nellie Toney, co-chair of the breakfast, said the students could pick any topic, but in the essay they must answer that question.
The Essay/Arts committee reads each entry to see how well the question is answered. The essay also is judged on originality, clearness of content, grammar, punctuation, neatness, legibility and total impact of the submitted material.
Ms. Toney said that each school may submit up to four essays. The winners attended the breakfast and each received a $100 gift certificate.
Zenobia Turner said in her essay that Dr. King “forced change within the government and people’s minds by promoting peaceful protest.” She also wrote about Dr. King’s taking part in lunch counter sit-ins, leading the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and defending peaceful protest in his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” among other actions.
She said that, “thanks to Rev. King I am able to attend an integrated school and I have the right to be opinionated.” She said that sometimes debates in school can become very heated and she speaks up because she wants to bring attention to these problems and help people to understand her more and connect with her “better than they normally do.”
“I’ve grown as a person to know that there is nothing wrong with standing alone in a room full of people and if I think something is wrong or right, I have that choice to speak.”
In his essay Tyrese Belanis wrote of Dr. King’s stand for equality and peace, his belief that “we could stand together as a united nation and look past all our differences.... Dr. King sought freedom: though people were freed from slavery they were still not free from racial injustice.”
Mr. Belanis said that as a young black male in America, “I can see we still have a lot of work to do.” He said Dr. King made it possible for him to have Caucasian friends “without it becoming a predicament.” He said “we should celebrate and respect our differences and commonalities.”
“Though we are not done fighting the good fight, we have made some strides but there is more for us to do in the matters of equality and we should strive to go even further,” Mr. Belanis wrote.
Michael Klofft quoted Dr. King as saying: “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
He said that explains how white people convinced themselves that their mistreatment of African-Americans was fine. He said Dr. King’s fight for equal rights for African-Americans was unpopular and Dr. King “had to sacrifice everything for what he believed in.”
Mr. Klofft said his own views opposing abortion are also unpopular. He said an average of about 3,000 abortions are performed each day in the United States. Abortion claims more lives, 1.2 million a year, than any other cause of death.
“It is, in every way, morally wrong. In many ways, it is murder; however, many people refuse to accept this,” he wrote.
Though Dr. King did not speak publicly about abortion, “it is likely he was against it,” Mr. Klofft wrote. “His own niece, Alveda King, a pro-life activist reminds people of her uncle’s words: ‘The Negro cannot win if he is willing to sacrifice the future of his children for immediate personal comfort and safety. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”
He wrote that abortion centers, “especially Planned Parenthood, are racist” in some ways because they target Black neighborhoods. “Because of this, it is five times more likely for a Black woman to get an abortion.”
“While I don’t think that I could do it just yet,” Mr. Klofft wrote, “I think that sometime in the near future I would like to take a more public stance against abortion. It is unacceptable and must be stopped. People are already taking stands against it, and I would like to join them in the fight against abortion.”
In her essay advocating gun control, Emma Robeau quoted Dr. King as saying: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
She wrote that more than 90 Americans a day, about 35,000 a year, are killed by gun violence. Of that number, she wrote, two-thirds are suicides, one-third are homicides. Gun homicides are most frequent in racially segregated, poor neighborhoods. Black Americans are 10 times more likely to die than white Americans by gun homicide.
She wrote that Dr. King  inspired millions of people in the world to take action, “and one of them is me. I’ve been inspired to fight back against gun violence. I’ve been inspired to take a stand in my community. I’ve been inspired to create solutions that will aid hundreds of suffering people in the community. Lastly, I’ve been inspired to use my conscience to not be silent about the things that matter, and it’s all because of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”