Written By Margaret Reist • Jan 21, 2017 Updated Aug 28, 2019
Here’s how it starts.
You’re playing basketball and one day the coach, out of the blue, says he’s got a job for you. A project. Fourth-grader that you are, you smile and say, OK, coach. Before long, you’re recruiting your younger twin brothers to the cause.
Or, your older sister gets tapped by the president of the local NAACP chapter to participate in a rally and you go to hear her speak. Then your other sister follows in her footsteps, then suddenly you’re in high school and it seems only natural that you should now stand at a podium talking to hundreds of people about Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy.
That, at least, is how it happened for Azcia Fleming and Micah Wilson -- two high school students for whom the Martin Luther King Youth Rally and March has become a family affair of sorts.
Wilson, now a senior at East High School, started attending the rallies in middle school because of his older sister, and last year he took his first turn at the podium.
As fate would have it, Fleming, now a freshman at Lincoln High’s International Baccalaureate Program, played on a basketball team coached by Pete Ferguson, who’s been at the helm of the student-driven rally for years. She got her twin brothers involved, five years later they’re still here and now their half-sister is involved.
And so on Saturday Fleming and Wilson welcomed a crowd at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln student union -- the first time in the event’s 22-year history that it hasn’t been held in the Nebraska State Capitol’s Warner Chamber.
Traditionally held on Martin Luther King Day, this year’s ice storm prompted organizers to postpone it until Saturday and move it to the union.
That was a fine place to do what they came to do.
“We’re here today to celebrate the lives and dreams of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Wilson said.
He and Fleming highlighted the issues they are standing up for today: the achievement gap, racism, police brutality, discrimination against the LBGTQ community, mass incarceration and gender inequality.
“We ask that after this program you ask yourself what issues you are passionate about,” they said. “How are you going to stand up and speak out. How are you going to be the comet that impacts your sky?”
Neither Fleming or Wilson knew Leola Bullock, the local civil rights icon who started the rally, which she envisioned being student-driven.
But they appreciate what she did, they said, and part of the time they commit each year to organize the rally is to honor her dream.
“We’re part of the legacy she inspired,” Wilson said in an interview before the rally. “What she wanted youth to be in our community, we’re building off what she wanted.”
Wilson’s mom Catherine Wilson said her kids decided on their own to participate and while she encouraged them -- they kept going back on their own each year, committing every Sunday for months to planning.
She likes that the event promotes leadership skills, that it teaches students much more about the civil rights movement than students learn in schools, and that it inspires them to become involved.
Both of Wilson’s sisters are in college now, but their influence slipped into the speech their younger brother gave at Saturday’s rally.
“I was in middle school when my older sister stands where I am today,” he said. “Within her speech, she introduced the idea that diversity is much more than how many African-Americans you have on your campus, but rather diversity is different experiences, and those experience give life to knowledge.”
Fleming says being involved in the rally has taught her much about civil rights locally and nationally. And she believes in the mission to promote equality and civic action.
“I just think about where we were and where we are now. We still have a long way to go,” she said. “But I appreciate the people who paved the way. I wouldn’t have the parents I have now (Fleming is biracial), I wouldn’t’ be sitting in class and raising my hand.”
Wilson, who will graduate from East this May, said his experience with the rally has taught him that he can be an agent for change.
“The main thing I’m going to take away is that even though I’m a minority youth I can evoke positive change in my community no matter where I go,” he said.
Fleming’s younger brothers Malik and Makhi said they’ve learned how to get up in front of people and speak -- no easy task. They’ve always performed together, until this year, when they gave separate speeches.
On Saturday, Makhi remembered the people who’ve lost their lives because of discrimination -- from Emmet Till to recent victims of police shootings.
And Malik read a letter to President Trump, encouraging him to represent everyone.
“I look forward to you making sure that those in the minority are not hidden figures,” he said. “That more effort, time and resources are spent on tearing down walls, not building them.”
And then, because he knows how the new president likes Twitter, he ended with this:
“I know you like to Tweet, so feel free to follow us at @MRally93.”