Milwaukee NAACP Youth Council continue to walk in Martin Luther King Jr.'s footsteps

Service to others is one of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s tenets.

And members of Milwaukee NAACP’s Youth Council espouse that through the various social justice and civic engagement projects the group does annually. The teenagers and young adults – ranging in age from 12 to 23 – have done get-out-the-vote and NAACP recruitment drives, back-to-school giveaways, youth forums and even met with the state’s Black legislators.

As people prepare to mark this nation’s only federal holiday set aside for service, NAACP’s youth council spent a few hours Sunday volunteering to set up the state’s largest Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.

They worked behind the scenes to help set up the banquet hall at the Potawatomi Casino Hotel Event Center for the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee’s annual King Day celebration. The event, which took place Monday, drew nearly 800 attendees.

But this volunteer opportunity is part of a long line of service opportunities to help build the leadership skills for the next generation of social justice activists.

The youth reflected on their many service projects and how being in service to one’s community, especially for youth, achieves King’s notion of a “beloved community.” The premise is for “people of all races cooperate together in a spirit of friendship and goodwill.”

Taylor Thompson, 17, is president of NAACP's youth council. She said King was about advocacy for social change. She understood that when the group went to Madison for NAACP’s inaugural Juneteenth Day at the Capitol last year. The youth spoke with the governor and state legislators about issues affecting youth.

The event inspired her to advocate for change, especially at Germantown High School where she is a student. Few minority students attend there, and racism is a problem, Thompson said.

She wants to work with the school’s Black student union to attend school board meetings and find a way for students to be involved in the hiring process. She understands that fighting for racial justice is a marathon, not a sprint – something she said King understood as well.

“Change is not going to happen in one single day or in one single meeting,” Thompson said. “It is going to happen over time, but it is going to happen slowly. It can happen if you are committed to it. That’s what Dr. King was preaching. It will take some time, but with hard work and dedication, it will happen.”

Elijah Jandrisevits, 19, a student at Milwaukee Area Technical College, has been involved with the youth council since 2020. The outreach shows that one person, like Dr. King, can make a difference. He added it’s important for everyone to realize they have a voice.

“I think in this day and age, it doesn’t seem like an individual can make that much of an impact, especially with all this social media stuff and this political environment,” said Jandrisevits, who is white.

“I think it is really important for people to realize the power that they have and their voice,” he said. “And when you are able to unlock that (you) realize the gifts you are given can make a significant impact.”

Erik Zawodniak, 23, who is also white and from Connecticut, has been involved with the NAACP’s youth council since March. Zawodniak chose to work with nonprofits addressing social and racial ills affecting Milwaukee’s Black and brown communities as part of his tenure with AmeriCorps, a national volunteer organization.

He said the council’s work aims to uplift young people's voices. That’s needed in this city where young people are often portrayed negatively, especially in the media. People need to remember King was a young adult when he began working for racial and social injustice, he said.

King, Zawodniak noted, wasn’t even 40 when an assassin’s bullet killed him in Memphis fighting for better working condition for the city’s Black sanitation workers.

But Zawodniak says he's most inspired by Dr. King’s 1963 book Why We Can’t Wait, which is based on his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

In it, Zawodniak says King talks about a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. He said “people from all different backgrounds” need to cross these racial divides to work together for a common good.

“Dr. King was working toward that in the last few years of his life through the Poor People Campaign -- expanding his work to the plight of all disadvantaged people,” Zawodniak said. “That intersectionality of Dr. King’s work really influences me.”

Now Zawodniak wants to go to law school to be a civil rights lawyer working on immigration issues.

Thomas Giles, 16, a student at the High School of the Arts, did not understand the importance of service until he joined the NAACP. He said it changed his life. Now he can’t recount all the service projects he’s participated in to help his community.

“I changed coming into the NAACP,” Giles said. “I was in and out of jail before I came here. Now I’m straight. I’m on the track that I need to be on.”

But the lesson he learned most is treating people as equals. He said both Dr. King and Malcolm X fought for that.

“They both did something for the Black community,” Giles said.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee NAACP Youth Council honor Martin Luther King Jr.