The Martin Luther King Jr. chapel service was held on Jan 25. In the beginning, Kevin Allen opened up on the piano playing a few songs. He had everyone on their feet as he played A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke, We are the World by USA for Africa and Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson.

“It was amazing to see how everyone in the entire chapel joined together singing no matter what background they came from,” senior Ian Payne said.

Junior Kinley Sanders and sophomore Amber Fields then started the service with laws that impacted blacks in the 1900s. Laws such as the Jim Crow laws which segregated blacks from white people in the United States and also the baseball struggles that blacks endured throughout the mid 1900s up until 1947 which decreed blacks could not play within two blocks of white men.

Maggie Inman was next of many speakers giving enlightenment on King’s life and struggles. She touched on where he was born and raised, and how he was inspired by the Montgomery Boycott which was started for the arrest of Rosa Parks.

“I definitely think there is still a lot to fight for for women and for Black Americans. There is a lot of struggle that is still being fought and I think it is our duty as the next generation to open our minds and our hearts and I think at Darlington we have a very unique opportunity to be constantly surrounded by diversity and we learn a lot about tolerance here and I think it is important that people go out in the world and are tolerant and take what they’ve learned from being around such a unique community at Darlington,” junior Marissa Joseph said.

Inman also spoke on the courage that King had to keep pushing forward despite being arrested multiple times for speaking out.

“I certainly value the courage that he showed and the action that he took. He chose not to be apathetic, he chose to take action and I wouldn’t be doing the work I am today, I wouldn’t be able. There wouldn’t be a need for the job that I do today literally if it were not for the movement that he began and that still continues,” Dean of Students for Global Education Tara Inman said.

Freshmen Jonathan Murphy, junior Aaryn Ljames and Joseph were the last speakers of the service giving statements about problems faced in today’s world and issues that people are dealing with now.

“‘This is important to everyone because black history is American history. This is not an issue just for black people, it is an issue for everyone and this is important because a lot of the things that MLK was fighting for are things that people are still fighting for now just manifested in a different form. Racism is still an issue today and I think if MLK was here today he would want the issues to be important to all of us. So I think it is important for the entire student body to open their hearts to the message that we are trying to put out,” Joseph said.