ARLINGTON – With an ugly cross burning still smudging Arlington’s recent past, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a few days away, Morris Dees told students on Thursday that King would be proud of their response to the crime.
Dees, a prominent civil rights activist from Montgomery, Ala., praised the students for supporting pastor Jason Martin’s family after a burning cross was left on their Arlington lawn in March.
The cross burning and several other race-related crimes in Snohomish County last year led Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon to invite Dees from to speak at an assembly of about 1,500 students at Arlington High School.
Dees said King, whose birthday will be celebrated Monday, would be especially proud of Michael Keating, Nick Tezak, Luke Passalacqua and Erik Hansen, four local students who organized an anti-racism rally in support for the Martins last spring.
“It makes me proud to be an American,” Dees said.
Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, has a history of taking on the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups in court. He began his speech talking about King’s legacy, though.
“He had to face terrorists with no conscience, politicians with no backbone, and many of his contemporaries who had no vision,” Dees said.
Later, Dees told a story of how people in Billings, Mont., showed their support for a Jewish family after a brick was thrown at a menorah displayed in their window. In response, many people put menorahs in their windows.
Dees said the family’s son told his mother, “I didn’t know so many Jewish people lived in Billings.
“And she said, ‘No, son, they’re our friends,’” Dees said.
In Arlington, the cross burning brought to light simmering racial tensions. At the time, Martin’s son, Tyshaun, said he had been followed to his car by students waving nooses at him.
The two boys who pleaded guilty to the crime had hung out with a loose association of friends and acquaintances who referred to themselves as “hicks.” Some people branded as racist everyone who identified themselves as a hick, but that wasn’t fair, said Nathan Hagen, 16.
“New people in my class said, ‘You’re a hick. Are you racist?’ No, I am not racist. … Not all of us are like that.”
Hagen was at the assembly, and said he liked Dees’ message.
“I thought it was good what he was doing, what his cause was for,” he said.
Since the cross burning, racial tensions have decreased at the school, Hagen said.
“It’s better,” he said, but racism is “still out there.”
Several students said they had not heard of Dees before.
Brice Harper, 16, said he liked most of what Dees had to say, but he wondered why Dees said that everyone has prejudices.
“I liked the part that we should all come together,” he said.
Harper, who is white, said he is new to the school and was surprised to encounter more racism than other places he had lived, including Marysville.
Kayla Cornist, 15, said her mixed heritage – one parent is white, the other black – made Dees’ message relevant to her, even though she had never heard of him.
“He basically spoke for me. … I’ve gotten called names before, in middle school,” she said. “It hurts.”
Tom Hudson, whose daughter, Chauntell, is a junior at Arlington High School, said the school district has done better since the cross burning. The Hudsons are black and are close friends and neighbors of the Martin family.
“There is more support,” Hudson said. “And the most important thing is that the faculty has become educated. They’re not blind to it anymore.”
That support was evident in the loud ovation the crowd of about 1,500 rained down on Martin’s high school sons, Tyshaun and Jacob, after their inspired, harmonized version of the national anthem. Their father was also showered with applause and cheers after Mayor Margaret Larson presented him with a Spirit of Arlington award.
The support was not unanimous, though. Hudson said he noticed a few kids here and there who seemed obviously put off by the assembly, particularly by Dees’ comments.
“They were here because they had to be,” Hudson said.
Two boys were taken out of the gym early in the assembly, although it was unclear why. Kayla Cornist and Kristen Haverman, 15, were sitting nearby.
“They were being totally disrespectful,” Kayla said, although neither girl heard exactly what the boys said.
Catherine Russell, spokeswoman for the Arlington School District, said she could not reveal exact disciplinary measures because of the school’s privacy policy.
The incident was a brief blip in an otherwise smooth event.
At the end of the assembly, Larson and Martin both appeared to struggle for a brief moment to contain their emotions.
“My heart is really touched,” Martin said in accepting the award. “We moved here because we loved the community of Gleneagle and Arlington. And we’re staying here because we love the community.”
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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