Cultural and political icons such as tennis champion Serena Williams, civil rights activist the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai filled the movie screen at the Alhambra Theatre as hip-hop artist Shaun Boothe sang about their lives and impact for a few hundred middle and high school students.
They were present for Boothe’s “Unauthorized Biographer Series,” which the Pennyroyal Arts Council’s smARTS program brought to Hopkinsville for local students and some adults who wanted to see the presentation.
Although his young audience knows Martin Luther King as a widely respected American today, he shared with them that King was mostly unpopular during his lifetime.
“Dr. King has all the opposition in the world … he was stabbed in the chest fighting for justice, fighting for equality, going to jail 30 times, having bombs thrown at his house …,” Boothe described. “With all of that happening to him, never once did he stop believing in the greater good of the people … never once did he stop believing in his dream.”
King made it possible for new leaders after him to rise, setting in motion a legacy that would one day lead to the election of the first Black American president, Barack Obama, said Boothe.
“He passed the baton on to the next generation,” said Boothe.
And from there, the baton went to another generation, he said, pointing to his audience in the Alhambra.
“All of you, you have that baton,” he said. “… It’s up to you to take that baton and to continue to do all that great work that’s been done before you, and hopefully to lead with love like the people in our past have done and to continue to push all of us forward and empower the next generation coming after you.”
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
