Martin Luther King Jr. Assembly 2009
Burke Field House was pulsing with “feel good” energy at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. all-school assembly. Every division participated in the program including a combined chorus of men, boys and faculty (the latter was of course co-ed adding tremendously to the sound.) Thematically the assembly centered on “dreams”
keying off of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Langston Hughes poetry and Dream Flag Project.
Lower and Middle School students studied the dream poetry of Langston Hughes and then wrote their own dream poems, printing them on cloth, decorated with artwork in the fashion of Nepalese Prayer flags. The Dream Flags were meant to share positive hopes and were connected to one another on clotheslines and hung in Burke Field House for the assembly.
The assembly opened with sophomore Allen Louis’ strong voice singing “Precious Lord Take My Hand”. It was noted that this song was sung before each of Martin Luther King’s sermons at Sunday mornings. Included in the assembly were freedom rider stories recounted by students. Then multiple Lower and Middle School boys took the microphone to read the messages on their dream flags. The poems went from simple wishes such as, “I dream of being a famous author and being nice to people”, to the broader and harder to attain, “I dream that the world will be filled with hope, peace, laughter and no trash.” Similar thoughts were reflected on the flags decorating the field house including many lower school personal wishes for fame, glory and athletic prowess such as: “I dream of being a professional football player and giving lots of money to charity” and “I dream of being a pro goaltender and getting 
30 shutouts and giving $3000 to charity. One boy dreamed of being a rock star and many dreamed of keeping the world clean, stopping wars, stopping global warming and even that no one in the world be sick. Taking dreams to current events of the day, one boy dreamed of surviving this “horrible economic crisis” and that all people should be smiling.
30 shutouts and giving $3000 to charity. One boy dreamed of being a rock star and many dreamed of keeping the world clean, stopping wars, stopping global warming and even that no one in the world be sick. Taking dreams to current events of the day, one boy dreamed of surviving this “horrible economic crisis” and that all people should be smiling.A summary of many dreams was a flag created by a third grader who tied his dream to Brunswick’s motto of Courage, Honor and Truth: “My dream is to help the endangered species. By listening to the Brunswick motto, we can all make a difference. We must have courage to stand up for things that are right. We need to honor the environment. And, we should always try to come out with the truth. Just do it!
After the reading of multiple prayer flag poems, the assembly ended with “We are the World” sung by a huge chorus of Lower, Middle, and Upper School students along with a faculty/staff chorus. The whole school then went off to their classes with their dreams and those of their classmates as motivation.