To celebrate the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Western Reserve Academy’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging has organized a week full of informative and meaningful programming for our community. Today, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, our week started at Morning Meeting with keynote speaker Dr. Amoaba Gooden P ’24. 

Head of School Suzanne Walker Buck P ’24 opened Morning Meeting with remarks on the holiday and the week ahead, indicating that, “we use this day as an opportunity to engage with each other and to reflect on the work of civil rights warriors and the growth we wish to foster.” The entire week will be dedicated to diversity, inclusion and social justice with a particular emphasis on the “relationship between empathy and action.” Mrs. Buck ended her remarks with an excerpt from poet Amanda Gorman’s piece “The Hill We Climb,” noting that “there is always light if only we are brave enough to see it.”

Sharing the stage was WRA student Ethan Jing ’25. In November, Ethan attended the Student Diversity Leadership Conference in St. Louis along with three other WRA students. The conference hosted over 2,000 students, leaders and activists from around the country. Ethan offered remarks on his experience at SDLC. In a moment of vulnerability, he explained that he was unsure of his role at the conference, indicating that he questioned his ability to impact great change in the world. His confidence came from a realization that, like himself and his classmates, Dr. King — and other social justice heroes — were and are inescapably human. Ethan’s process led him to recognize that everyone at SDLC wanted to take a risk and create the change they wanted to see, just like Dr. King. He left the stage with a powerful call to action: “Let’s act upon our brilliance to create a better world.” 

Following Jing’s reflections, Dr. Gooden was introduced by her daughter, NyAshia Gooden-Clarke ’24. NyAshia beamed with pride as she listed her mother’s accomplishments and accolades in a beautiful and heartfelt prelude to Dr. Gooden’s lesson. 

Appropriately following Ethan’s suit, Dr. Gooden encouraged our community to see past the pedestal on which Dr. King is placed and look at him as a father, husband, traveler and more. After noting the common conception of Dr. King as hero, Dr. Gooden offered an idea that his strength indeed came from his vulnerability and his ability to lean on those individuals who loved him dearly. 

Dr. Gooden’s reflection on Dr. King’s legacy was spurred by her own experience growing up in Canada. As a child, a woman in her apartment complex often gathered children of all backgrounds to teach them about the culture and experience of others. The woman, Ula Parker, instilled in a young Dr. Gooden a powerful draw to social justice and human rights. 

She highlighted her talk with a clip of Dr. King’s own voice in an excerpt from his speech for the CBC’s annual Massey Lectures in 1967. In the excerpt, Dr. King made clear the relationship between Canada and the United States, and Dr. Gooden further emphasized that the relationship is brought about by a link to justice and freedom. 

WRA’s own global community could not be more grateful for the opportunity to learn from Dr. Gooden. As Dean of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Dr. James Greenwood reminded us in his closing, anyone can serve in the fight for justice. And the WRA Community is poised to do just that.

We have more programming throughout the week, including a moving reenactment of one of Dr. King’s speeches this Friday by Prester Pickett, a coordinator of the Howard A. Mims African American Cultural Center at Cleveland State University. For more information, look to our Instagram page @westernreserveacedemy.