Pomp and Circumstances

"We who are strong will reach out and help those who have fallen. We who are brave will help those who have lost their courage. We who are compassionate will wrap our arms around those who feel unloved ..."

The eloquence was rare for a sixth-grader, and eyes grew moist all across the all-purpose room of Meyer Elementary School in Washington, DC. LaKeysha Lewis, a member of our "Young Teens Group" at Sojourners Neighborhood Center, was offering the farewell address to the school on behalf of all her classmates. It was her prerogative as valedictorian of the graduating sixth-grade class.

Dressed in a white dress especially for the occasion, LaKeysha was all poise and articulation. Her classmates were similarly adorned for the splendid affair -- the boys in suits, the girls with stylishly sweeping or braided hairstyles that represented hours of work on the part of patient mothers and grandmothers.

"Pomp and Circumstance" had ushered in the graduates, who walked proudly, trying to keep just the right amount of space between one another and doing their best to suppress smiles that threatened to erupt in giggles. Those of us from Sojourners Neighborhood Center had posted ourselves in the row behind the seats reserved for the graduating class, with a clear view and the opportunity to offer a wave or a wink to each of our young friends as they filed in.

"Lift Every Voice and Sing" resounded through the room once the graduates had all found their places. The salutatorian offered the welcome address, ending with the proclamation that she and her classmates could be "mayor of the city, or a city councilman or councilwoman, a senator, the vice president, or even president." Acknowledging the scourges of drugs, AIDS, racism, and teenage pregnancy, she encouraged her friends to "keep self-respect" and "avoid drugs."

A member of the first class to graduate from Meyer, the class of 1963, offered words of encouragement, and a young woman from the class of 1988 urged the students to see their graduation as "the first climb on the ladder of success." We cheered jubilantly as our graduates from the neighborhood center -- Bryan Findley, Tanesha Hillie, Tereia Joe, Frankie Moore-Bey, Kizzie Robinson, Carlton Simmons, April Smith, Lotus Swift, and Shikkia Thomas, in addition to LaKeysha -- took their turn to step forward and receive a diploma.

JUST A FEW WEEKS before, we had all shared a hot Saturday afternoon in the parking lot next to the neighborhood center, holding a car wash to raise money for a trip to King's Dominion amusement park in Virginia. We had all worked hard -- until the water fight broke out at the end. No one came home dry that day.

Tandie Shears, the program coordinator for the teen group, grabbed the hose and announced, "Boys against girls!" catching as many boys as she could with the spray, while the girls looked on and laughed. It didn't take long before the boys managed to wrestle the hose away. They ran off to a corner of the parking lot to plot their strategy.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the boys, Tandie disconnected the two pieces that made up the hose. The boys came charging out of the corner toward the girls, only to discover that they had a useless piece of hose in their hands. Sticking her thumb against the end of her half, Tandie let them all have it, while the girls shrieked in victory. Score one for the triumph of ingenuity over force.

On this more somber day of graduation, I hoped that the lesson had taken. It was sobering to realize that this class's junior high graduation will be much smaller, and high school graduation smaller still, if these students follow the trends of their older brothers and sisters. Sixth-grade pomp and circumstance will be the only ceremony for most of these children. Unless they beat the odds, some will soon be raising children of their own, and others will die in the violence of the streets, where petty disputes are often settled with guns and knives. I wished that they could go through life with hoses as their only weapons. And ingenuity.

But some will make it. LaKeysha talked about walking through "doors of hope, doors of opportunity, doors of growth." And as I heard her proclaim with a broad smile, "You are going to be proud of us," I felt my own eyes grow moist and knew that it was true.

For I have seen some of these children at work: bringing the walls of the Sojourners Neighborhood Center to life with paintings and poems; creating tie-dye fashions with explosions of fuchsia and purple color on fabric; learning to write in journals and choreographing dances for the annual talent show; spending hours before a computer until they learn to solve a problem just right. They are full of life and creativity. And some will make it. For their sake, we have to keep believing it.

"We who are strong will reach out ..."

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.