The first time Emma Brown took part in the Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Rally and March, it was not the same full-house affair that others were used to.
The youth-driven rally, which takes place annually on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, was forced online because of the coronavirus pandemic in 2021. So this year, the eighth-grader at Lefler Middle School was looking forward to a return to normalcy.
Then came the omicron variant, and a change in plans: The rally would be live-streamed with no in-person audience for a second straight year.
"That kind of bummed me out," Brown said. "I was looking forward to all these people coming in."
But like the rest of her peers on the planning committee for the 27th annual rally, Brown knew that the mission of the program remained unchanged.
To educate, empower and engage. To "Walk Together" — the rally's theme this year — in steps toward civility, justice, equity and kindness. To talk about the injustices, too, that still persist today, like the movements across the country to restrict voting rights.
Messages that ring true no matter how they're delivered.
"We're still able to reach people through their screens because it's a really powerful program," Brown said.
Highlights from MLK Youth Rally
And Monday at the Nebraska Union on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, that's exactly what they did.
In front of a handful of people and a camera in a second-floor ballroom, the rally participants honored the legacy of MLK and late civil rights activist Leola Bullock — the rally's founder — with moving speeches, poetry and songs.
This "call to action" — the main event of the rally — included a mix of pre-recorded segments and live performances, including by fifth graders in Belmont Elementary School's TRACKS scholar program, who told the story of the little-known Teachers March in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.
Brown recited the poem "In This Place (An American Lyric)" written by Amanda Gorman, the Black woman who became the youngest poet to read at a presidential inauguration.
To Brown, the poem "is about all these places in America, and how every single person has their own story, and that everybody has a chance to kind of rewrite this nation in that we can change these stories and make our world a better place."
Omaha Central High School sophomore Kherie Posey used her voice in a different way — through music, singing songs such as Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" and a mashup of the spiritual "The Goodbye Song" and "Glory" by John Legend and Common.
"Music is a universal language," she said.
Posey got involved in the rally for the first time this year after meeting Pete Ferguson, a youth development coordinator at Lincoln Public Schools and one of the rally's advisers, over the summer.
She learned how the rally was more than just honoring people such as MLK and Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman, but all Black people who fought for change and paved the way for greater civil rights.
"Those were not the only people to put in the footmarks," she said.
The MLK Youth Rally, in its 27th year, was the brainchild of Bullock, who wanted to make MLK Day about youth empowerment.
But for the past two years, rally organizers have had to adapt. There is no march through the streets of Lincoln, no in-person audience.
"It's different in a lot of ways," Ferguson said. "Just for people in the community, the elders, who come to be reaffirmed, this is their booster shot. ... You see tears rolling down somebody's cheek; you can't replicate that virtually."
Parents of those involved Monday were able to watch the livestream in adjoining rooms and later met their children after the rally, smiles beaming behind their masks.
"Every year, it seems like they take the notch up just a little bit higher than the previous year," said Scott Moore, whose daughter Tatum Moore, a freshman at Lincoln High School, took part in the rally. "It's really good for our community."
And although it was disappointing not to have a packed house, Lincoln High senior Riek Bol says there is a silver lining.
"We have the exposure to other people around the world, around the country ... to view it and see how powerful our message can be."