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Actor Steven Tejada (below)performed an excerpt from hisone-man comedy/drama, BoogieDown Journeys, during a Januaryassembly. Aptly coinciding withthe week of Martin Luther KingJr. Day, Tejada’s work drew on hispersonal experiences in the SouthBronx and its contrast with hisexperiences at prep school and inother privileged arenas.A. TejadaThe Colors of Community Serviceby Fannie Watkinson ’08Our car struggled to gain speed aswe limped along behind a yellowschool bus, winding through theback roads of Carlisle, past plasticreplicas of reindeer and houses with quaintsnow-covered arches. After I-495 we enteredLawrence, a mill town peeking through yearsof grime, and fell behind another bus. A girl intight jeans and a black jacket ran onto the bus.We waited as the bus made no movementforward, then saw the girl run off again a secondlater. She was a mother, younger than Iam, retrieving an item for her child.Once we arrived at the brand-new Law -rence Capernaum Place shelter, affiliated withLazarus House Ministries, we prepared topaint a mural in the nursery, working alongsidesixth-graders from Esperanza Academy,the School of Hope, also in Lawrence. Wewere on a service trip in honor of MartinLuther King Jr. Day.Within minutes, CA and Esperanzastudents paired up and clad themselves ingreen, yellow, orange, red, or blue XL shirts. Imet Liz, my painting partner, a bright-eyed girlwith Portuguese pride and enthusiasm for anytask. As the day wound on, I found myselfstopping momentarily, my yellow paint brushhanging in mid-air, and watching color spreaditself across three walls in the mural, designedand drawn by Duncan Sherwood Forbes ’08.On two of the walls were squares of color,which merged into a big rainbow swirl on themiddle wall. We alternated between painting,decorating mugs for the adults living in theshelter, and sharing games. For some of us,hand claps were tough to recall, but after yearsof practice, they seemed ingrained in musclememory.After all the Esperanza Academy studentsleft, I stood in a spotless room with beigewalls and a couple stray tables. Where werethe noise, the energy, and all the bright colors?I walked into the adjacent room and looked atthe newly painted walls, shelves piled back upwith children’s toys and games. There we allwere on the wall: a rainbow of color and handprintsweaving across the room.It’s funny to leave a place on which youhave made your imprint after just one day. Iwondered what my buddy Liz was doing andwhether she was as tired as I was. I still hadpaint on my hands and clothes, and I didn’twant it to wash out.CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008In the days following the Martin Luther King Jr. Day programming,some history classes discussed Hilliard’s speech. In one class, studentscommented that the group needed militancy to attract attention to itscause. While several students criticized Hilliard for downplaying the party’sviolence, one said she considered Hilliard’s positive approach “totallynecessary” because her impression of the Black Panthers was so completelynegative. “For me to move that even a little bit, he needed to be thatpositive,” she said.In his keynote and his workshop, Hilliard encouraged today’s youthto start movements to change society. But he also discussed how themedia’s influence makes that more challenging. Instead of watching MTV,he said, youth in his day watched protestors marching on TV. “I wanted tobe Malcolm X. I didn’t want to be a basketball player,” he said. “Ourheroes were different.”Now the head of the Huey Newton Foundation, Hilliard has mellowedsomewhat with age. “We coined the phrase that you can’t trustanybody over thirty. That was our phrase,” he said. “Of course I take thatback now.”34David Hilliard in a small workshop following his keynote address