More Than MLK's Words And Dreams

Speeches by Prince William Students Bring To Life an Icon's Passion and Compassion

They drop quotations from world leaders and authors -- Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel -- and of course, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

They speak of humanity, injustice and neglect. They question historical monstrosities and admonish their elders for inaction. They work to persuade, move and inspire.

They are in the seventh grade.

Seth Opoku-Yeboah, 12, of Woodbridge, Emoni Matthews, 12, of Dale City and Cecile Diomi, 13, of Bristow are the three middle school finalists in the 17th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Oratorical Contest.

The finals will be tomorrow at the Hylton Memorial Chapel in Woodbridge. It's part of a larger Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration hosted by the Prince William County Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and its education and public service foundation that draws about 2,000 people each year.

Nineteen middle school students and 10 high school students in Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park reached the contest's semifinals, writing and reciting speeches based on the theme "We Said, 'Never Again!' . . . Hope for Those Unseen."

"The topic was to make them aware of what is going on in Africa . . . to understand how to compare and contrast how what is going on in Africa is so similar to what happened during the Holocaust," said Lillie Jessie, co-chairwoman on the celebration's organizing committee.

It's heavy stuff for a middle-schooler.

Seth knew about the Holocaust from his sixth-grade lessons, but he admittedly didn't know much about the conflict in Darfur, which got on the world's radar in 2003.

"Now, I'm like the expert on it," the Benton Middle School student said. "You understand how people are just suffering to live another day."

Practicing his seven-minute speech last week, Seth explained the similarities in Hitler's Final Solution and the mounting tensions between ethnic groups in western Sudan, sometimes in graphic detail. He was direct, passionate and used a simplicity that made those extraordinarily convoluted occurrences crystal clear to listeners. His voice rose and fell at just the right moments to add tension and drama.

"We made a promise after the Holocaust. The United Nations said that genocide would never happen again. Then in 2003, the Sudan conflict started in the Darfur region, but we are still allowing it to happen again. . . . It makes you wonder, why aren't we stopping genocide today after we made the promise?" he said, sitting in front of his family's piano with his hands folded in his lap.