Broderick Lemke

22 November 2016

SSCI 408-A

Dr. Cheryl Carpenter Siegel

Response to Martin Luther King Jr. Speech

Martin Luther King Jr. gave the speech that we were asked to respond to before the youth
march for integrated schools to around twenty-six thousand people on the grounds of the Washington
Monument. Before the excerpt we were asked to respond to, Dr. King addresses the young people who
were gathered to march against the segregation of schools. He stated that the march was a historic
event that was one of the first of its kind in our nations history. Young people were the center of the
demonstration, specifically youth who sought desegregation and were fighting for the future. Today,
events of this kind happen somewhat frequently as demonstrations and protests bring awareness to
issues and show support for the marginalized groups in our society. In my observation, many events of
this kind happen in areas in which academia is stressed - high schools and colleges - where youth are
encouraged to think and explore ideas for themselves and to show their discontent with the way things
currently are. I believe Dr. King was aware of this and tried to push the youth to incorporate civil rights
issues into their lives as they grew up. He wanted them to take the issues they were passionate about
and to keep them burning in their hearts and driving them and their decisions throughout life. He tells
them to weave civil rights into their jobs as doctors, lawyers and teachers, to use this passion to help
shape things beyond their schools, and to take these values out into the world.

In response, I wanted to encompass both the idea of youth participation and my efforts to carry
on civil rights into my professional field. This portfolio is a collection of four pieces of evidence that show
how I have attempted to embody these roles this semester and gain resources and skills to help me
carry on what I learned through the rest of my life. The first two pieces, a letter to the FDA on the MSM
blood ban and a list of activities I have participated in and attended this semester for education,
represent me taking on the issues of civil rights while I am still a young adult, the group Martin Luther
King Jr. was addressing in his speech. The third piece of evidence, an editorial in the SNC Times, is an
attempt to bridge the gap between my current activism and my future career aspirations. Finally, a
music theory paper written about Dame Ethel Smyths Mass in D, serves as a piece that I will be editing
and submitting to graduate programs and adding to my body of professional work in order to draw
attention to a diverse composer who was discredited in her own times. Below I lay out my rationale
behind each piece in more detail:

MSM Blood Ban Letter to the FDA:

As a student activist at Saint Norbert College, Ive participated in Rainbow Alliance since
freshman year. This organization has served as both a place of education and as a social location
for students to participate in LGBTQ+ activism. The drive towards activism has gone down in the
past few years and as the organizations current president, I proposed getting more involved in
our campus community. As a result, we worked as an organization to find a cause we wanted
 to address. The MSM Blood Ban was a perfect opportunity for activism, since it was a popular
topic of discussion after an on-campus event where a student was turned away from donating
blood. After Rainbow Alliance chose the issue I did some individual research and penned a letter
to the FDA during their open comments period. We had over 50 signatures on the document
from students, staff and faculty when we sent it in and many of the people who signed were
educated about an issue they had not been familiar with.

List of Participation in Events/Activities:

In order to improve my understanding of various groups, I realize I must participate in continual

self-education on various topics relating to inequality. This class has been a reminder that I do
not have a great depth of knowledge on issues relating to gender, race or religion. In order to
combat my personal ignorance and become a better ally, I have begun to seek out additional
opportunities to engage in conversation about these topics. The list of these activities serves as
an acknowledgement of the conscious effort I have put forth into my own social justice
education.

Editorial in the Saint Norbert Times:

My career aspirations are to teach Music Theory on a college campus. As such, I view academic
realms as a continuous factor in my life. The editorial piece that was published in the Saint
Norbert Times was written after a reflection of the environment from our campus. This piece
serves as a tool to share my point of view on this campus, but also as a document that
showcases my commitment to speaking about activism in an academic realm.

Music Theory Paper on Dame Ethel Smyths Mass in D:

Dame Ethel Smyth was a composer during the Romantic era of music. She was acquainted with
many of the greatest composers of her time including Dvorak, Grieg, Clara Schumann and
Brahms. However, unlike them she did not proper recognition for her work during her life and
still has not to this day. She was discredited because she was a female lesbian whose music was
too masculine. As I apply to graduate schools for music theory, I am expected to submit
several academic papers focused on music theory and I wanted to make a conscious effort to
include good music that was not well known. Her music is harmonically and rhythmically rich
and advanced for her time period. I want to ensure that my contributions towards the field I am
working in create more awareness of diverse composers and musicians. I feel it is necessary to
value musical traits over a persons gender or sexual identity, which has not always been the
case historically. This submission is a draft of my first paper on her Mass in D that I am writing
for an assignment in my music theory class, and I plan to write another paper on her metrical
accelerations and dissonances that will be used in graduate school applications.

Full speech at:

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/address-youth-march-integrated-schools