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Historian Brenna Wynn Greer spoke about “the perils of symbolic Blackness” and how popular Civil Rights history focuses simplistically on the nonviolent version of Martin Luther King, Jr., rather than the complexities of who he was as a person and an activist. Greer, an associate professor of history at Wellesley College, was this year’s MLK Jr. Day speaker.

Greer said the symbolic King is seen as a kind and gentle Black activist and that, “as a nation, we remain heavily invested in this symbolic King. This is a problem because symbolic King encourages simple and sanitized histories of the Black freedom struggle.”

During the few years before he was assassinated, “King’s criticism of capitalism and his opposition to the Vietnam War made him unpopular not only among U.S. officials but also among Civil Rights activists. This King was a troublemaker, so he was sidelined increasingly as an activist and he was pushed into the shadows as a historical figure,” said Greer. 

Our stories connect us and make us unique, students performing Walk Through This World demonstrated this week. Telling the personal stories of 91̽�� community members, the Project Story performers made connections among the School’s students, faculty, and staff.

Storytelling is especially important right now as people remain distant during the COVID-19 pandemic, said English faculty member Hannah Pulit ’07, who with Performing Arts faculty member Peter Parisi teaches the Project Story: Narrative Journalism and Performance course.

“At a time when many of us are feeling isolated and disconnected, we particularly appreciate the affirmation that stories matter, that they remind us of our shared humanity, and that, though we may feel lonely in our struggles, we are never truly alone,” Pulit said to close the performance.

Senior projects are a 91̽�� tradition providing graduating Class I students with an opportunity to take a deep dive into a topic that interests them, whether they’re serving the community, exploring a favorite class subject further, learning a new skill, shadowing a professional, or creating art.

Planning for the project period—the month of May through the first days of June—has encountered some obstacles during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, leading to an expansion of project offerings, said Academic Dean Heather Sugrue. 

“We wanted to provide some more options and build something that would assume our current pandemic restrictions remain in place,” she said. “So that means that we can’t plan for students having internships or working off-campus. We needed to give some more options.”

The new offerings this year include the choice of more than a dozen seminars coordinated by adults in the 91̽�� community. Topics include creative writing, animation, designing educational games, the historical archeology of 91̽��, justice and law in the movies, geology, cooking, Latin epigraphy, prize fiction of 2020, race and the war on drugs, military history, the future of schools, and more.