Monday, Jan. 14, CPS students and teachers will be taking the day off in commemoration of black rights advocate, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Despite being a relatively known holiday, RBHS media center specialist, Beth Shapiro feels the true purpose of the day is overlooked and seen as any other vacation day. In efforts to showcase the media center’s book collection on Dr. King and promote his life, Shapiro picked out and displayed novels relating to his life.
“ I try to highlight certain books during certain times of the year,” Shapiro said. “I put out some holiday books, and certain novels during banned books week. During hispanic heritage month i put out books that were either about Latinos, or written by Latinos. I really try to showcase our collection, let students know we have these resources, but also to try and promote the occasions through our novels.”
Shapiro claims the Dr. King display has attracted a decent amount of students, and hopes people enjoy the variety of informative novels on his life.
In terms of remembering his life, senior Laila Rice agrees with Shapiro and feels that Dr. King’s accomplishments are overlooked by a day off school. In terms of educating RBHS students, Rice proposes a school-wide lesson on Dr. King.
“People usually don’t think about why we have the day off,” Rice said. “ We should have a full day or at the very least an hour to learn about what he did for everybody, and how important he was. He helped so many people, an entire race, so for us to forget about him is just not right.”
Happy to hear about the display, Rice plans to take a look at the featured books. Shapiro encourages all to check out the display and celebrate Dr. King’s life
“I’m hopeful that people read and enjoy [the books],” Shapiro said. “We have typical things such as biographies on King, and we have more non-traditional things like a new graphic novel, so I’m hoping the variety will attract some attention.”