Feb. 20, 2018 -- In honor of Black History Month 2018, Fox 8 News asked the public how they are living out the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King. But they didn't want to hear from just anyone; they wanted to hear from our community’s young people. And hear, they did.

Twenty students from across Northeast Ohio were selected to share their thoughts, essays and poems on how Dr. King has influenced their lives. And two of those students hail from Tiger Nation: Heights High senior Londyn Crenshaw and Fairfax third grader Giani White, by far the youngest featured student.

Londyn was told about the contest by her father and wanted to enter because she thought it would be interesting to hear the perspectives of other young people on the impact of Dr. King’s words and work. She believes that were he alive today, he would be pleased with some of the racial progress we’ve made since his death and with the fact that “so many people are still out there fighting for justice.” 

 

But, as she referenced in her recorded spot, she thinks he would be disappointed with our current government and how “racist people are less afraid to show it in times such as these.” She urged viewers to remember Dr. King’s words, regardless of their own personal situation: “No one is free until we all are free.”

Giani White, a student in Ms. Fisher’s third grade class at Fairfax, was also one of those whose words were selected for broadcast, an exciting honor for this aspiring newscaster. “I always wanted to be on the news,” she said.

 

Giani’s mother Gia was extremely proud of her daughter and with good reason: the vast majority of the other students selected for “I Am Dr. King’s Dream” newscasts were high schoolers. Plus Fox 8 reporter Stephanie Schaefer was so impressed with the nine-year-old’s poise and grace under pressure that she welcomed her back anytime. “This is just the first of many opportunities for her,” said Gia. “She’s excited and ready to do it again.”

Giani’s words revealed a maturity and depth of thought that belied her youth: “Here in 2018, we still experience many of the same issues that Dr. King fought for,” she said in the station’s first Black History Month broadcast on February 1. “I want all black people and white people to get along. I want our worth to be equal.”

She believes that things are “better at Fairfax than other places out there.” And she thinks she can take the strong community she has in her classroom and “keep adding people to it, making the whole school better and then the neighborhood better and eventually everyone everywhere could get along.”

She reiterated that sense of hope in the closing lines of her news debut: “I want everyone to love one another…It may be my generation to make that change.”