Students compete in MLK Jr. Oratorical Festival for 38th year
on March 7, 2017
Over 1,000 students from 44 elementary, middle and high schools across Oakland competed in the Oakland Unified School District’s 38th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Oratorical Festival, which runs from October through February. At the finals on February 26 at Castlemont High School’s Reeder Performing Arts Center, competitors took the stage, performing a range of poems, speeches and dramatic scenes dealing with social justice, politics and other topics.
“It has been a labor of love to work on the oratorical festival,” said director Awele Makeba, “but because there’s this institutional memory and 38 years of legacy, there are people who love and cherish it.”
The auditorium was standing room only, filled with family members and friends who grew up either performing in or going to the festival themselves. It was founded in 1978 by Donald Oliver, a former Oakland school principal who passed away in 2010.
The festival culminates on the night of March 7 at City Hall, with an award ceremony for the first through third place winners from each category and each grade level.
Click the player below the photographs to hear the students at the oratorical festival.
-
- Five Thornhill Elementary School students perform an adaptation of Stevie Wonder’s “Black Man.” (Ryan Lindsay/Oakland North)
-
- Glenview School 5th grader Helena Rudensky performs Jacqueline Woodson’s “Second Daughter’s Second Day on Earth.” (Ryan Lindsay/Oakland North)
-
- Festival director Awele Makeba speaks with OUSD Equity Director Chris Chatmon (left) as Skyline sophomore Atlantis Clay looks on. (Ryan Lindsay/Oakland North)
-
- Skyline freshman Eleanor Wikstrom performs poet Denice Frohman’s, “The Hour Dylann Roof Sat in the Church.”
-
- Oakland Tech High School students Maya Ades and Samuel Getachew perform, “Somewhere in America.” (Ryan Lindsay/Oakland North)
-
- The judges sat directly in front of the stage, scoring performers on eye contact, delivery and interpretation of the text. (Ryan Lindsay/Oakland North)
-
- Seven-year-old Lovely LaShae Hudson performs her original poem, “Black is Beautiful.” (Ryan Lindsay/Oakland North)
-
- It was standing room only as the festival finals on Sunday, February 26th. (Ryan Lindsay/Oakland North)
-
- Montclair Elementary School students perform Maya Angelou’s, “The Human Family.” (Ryan Lindsay/Oakland North)
-
- Some group performances featured over 20 students. (Ryan Lindsay/Oakland North)
4 Comments
Oakland North welcomes comments from our readers, but we ask users to keep all discussion civil and on-topic. Comments post automatically without review from our staff, but we reserve the right to delete material that is libelous, a personal attack, or spam. We request that commenters consistently use the same login name. Comments from the same user posted under multiple aliases may be deleted. Oakland North assumes no liability for comments posted to the site and no endorsement is implied; commenters are solely responsible for their own content.
Oakland North
Oakland North is an online news service produced by students at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and covering Oakland, California. Our goals are to improve local coverage, innovate with digital media, and listen to you–about the issues that concern you and the reporting you’d like to see in your community. Please send news tips to: oaklandnorthstaff@gmail.com.
Correction: Atlantis clay is a 10th grader.
Thanks for that correction Atlantis, we’ve fixed the error.
Thanks so much for highlighting the young talent at the recent OUSD MLK Oratorical Fest. I wanted to let you know that the first photo is mislabeled. The girls are 5th graders from Thornhill Elementary – they performed an adaptation of Stevie Wonder’s Black Man. Thanks so much!
Thanks for catching that error Shauna, we’ve fixed it.