FALLS VILLAGE — Funded by grants given by Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation, the Falls Village Community Development Corporation invited the Connecticut Center for Nonviolence (CTCN) to speak to the middle school students of Lee H. Kellogg School in Falls Village on Wednesday, Jan. 18.
CTCN is a charitable organization based in Hartford that creates education programs and community outreach projects championing diversity and promoting nonviolent conflict resolution based on the teachings of the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
King led a movement protesting federal laws upholding racial discrimination until his assassination in 1968. The morning program was held just a few days after the celebration of the federal holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on Monday, Jan. 16.
CTCN’s event was led by Victoria Christgau, the founder and executive director of the organization, who spoke to the small group that makes up Kellogg’s sixth, seventh and eighth grades, outlining the broad strokes of King’s life. This interactive lecture, in which she asked students for input and answered questions, involved providing historical context on topics such as Jim Crow laws, segregated school systems and the Civil Rights Movement.
A large focus of the educational program was teaching the middle school students about King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, a famous piece of rhetoric calling for the end of racism during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.
Christgau was joined by two colleagues from CTCN, Gamaliel Moses and Lanea Sellem-Collins, who led students in interactive musical and spoken word exercises, allowing students to play instruments and create a poem based on their input.
The program was made possible with the use of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) funds given to the Falls Village Community Development Corp. Development Director Felicia Jones noted that the funds would be able to sponsor a second future educational program in the future.
“For educational programs like this we take our cues from the teachers at Kellogg, who tell us what would be valuable to the students, so they’ll tell us what the next step might be,” Jones said. “We had a successful end of the fundraiser, so in this coming year Community Development will be looking to invest in all four of the areas we cover — housing, equity and inclusion, the community and the local environment.”
