Frisch commemorated Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a full program for each grade led by faculty members of the history department. Teachers spoke about Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and activism before he was assassinated and his continuing legacy, and showed relevant clips of Martin Luther King Jr.’s public speaking and televised interviews. Teachers also prompted students to think about lingering themes of de facto racism, economic inequality and privilege that exist in the U.S. today.

Following the teachers’ lectures, students broke into groups for small workshops to further discuss the daily effects of white privilege, described to the students as issues they don’t even need to think about—like shopping in upscale department stores without fear of being harassed or followed by security, or the lack of urgency to be educated about how to respond if stopped by police during a routine traffic check—but which affect African Americans much differently in the U.S. today.

“The goal of our program was to have our students move beyond thinking about civil rights as an issue of the 1950s and 1960s, and to engage with the questions that Dr. King focused on at the end of his life, such as systemic injustice and economic inequality, and how those issues are part of the national conversation in the United States today,” said Dr. Rivka Schwartz, director of general studies, said.