Please Touch Museum honors MLK Day by encouraging children to speak up

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On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the Please Touch Museum honored Dr. King’s legacy with stories and a video that encourages children to speak up and engage in their communities.

After a 2023 event when the museum hosted elementary school students to speak to candidates who were running for mayor, including mayor Cherelle Parker, museum staff noticed that children had opinions on what they wanted to see in their own neighborhoods. Amirah Ali, senior manager of humanities programs, explained that became the theme of this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day events.

“We really wanted to highlight the concepts of speaking up and using your voice as a way to spread powerful messages,” she said. Children, she thinks, should be made “aware of how powerful their voices are, and the fact that youth and their voices and the things that they find really important to them are just as important as anything else anyone else wants to uplift.”

That philosophy of listening to the youngest citizens led to a focal point of the day’s programming: a short three-minute video titled Speak Up. In it, students from KIPP West Philadelphia Elementary Academy and Jacquelyn Y. Kelley Discovery Charter School talked about what they love about their communities and what they want to change. The students shared their ideas, which ranged from shelters for stray animals to encouraging people to take public transport and making housing more affordable.

Allison O’Donnell brought her three- and five-year-old daughters to the museum. Her older daughter has been learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at school and is excited to learn more about him.

“It was great that the kids recognized all of the kindness and the positivity in their community,” she said.

Fatoumata Coulibaly said she and her eight-year-old son particularly remembered the students who said they wanted to improve the community by stopping people from littering, because her children always ask her why people would put trash on the floor.

“They hate littering,” she said. “It’s really important to listen to our kids and see how they feel about what grown-ups do.”

The museum also celebrated the day with a performance from storyteller Karen “Queen Nur” Abdul-Malik, who entertained a crowd of children and adults with an adapted version of Aesop’s Fable “The Lion and the Mouse.” The storyteller also shared a story of childhood heartbreak from King’s childhood about how the father of a white friend insisted the boys no longer be allowed to play together.

Abdul-Malik said the fable presents to children the idea that there were times when others tried to make King feel small, but even as a child, he understood “there was something wrong with people who thought of differences and … bias and prejudice and racism. He felt it as a little boy, and in his mind, he said, ‘No, that’s not who I am.'”

Vanessa Randolph, who brought her three-year-old daughter to the museum for the first time, said she found the performance fun and engaging.

Nam Leduc, who was part of Randolph’s group, added that it was nice to see a newer “community-oriented” take on the fable.

Abdul-Malik said that’s what she hopes children will take away from the experience.

“I just wanted them to understand that connection — not only between how Martin thought, but how you would think as a little one, too. I want you to think that you’re mighty, mighty.”