Southside student wins MLK contest

by DENNIS GEISINGER

Essay award winner Robert G. Powell

“Although many Americans think we’ve come a long ways, we still have a long ways to go,” said 18-year-old Robert G. Powell at graduation ceremonies for this year’s senior class of the Urban League Academy, 2201 Blaisdell Ave., in South Minneapolis.
During graduation, Powell read, “Does the Dream Still Live On?” which won a $500 scholarship from TV One and Comcast for their “Live the Dream” essay contest on the progress that has been made on Martin Luther King’s dream—Are we living the dream today?

Powell says he’ll use the money toward college studies in journalism and his own dream of becoming a sports writer. He plans on entering Itasca Community College in the fall and hopes to later attend Georgia State University or Winona State, and said that he’s already secured financial aid money.

“He was a good, solid student,” said Academy High School Director John Ross. Ross oversees around 130 students at the Southside school, most of whom have not fit into more traditional high school settings. “Many are transitional students, and we also have students who had behavioral problems at other schools,” said Ross.

Powell distinguished himself for his originality, creativity and clarity of expression and grammar, according to criteria evaluated by an independent panel of judges and a TV One committee. “Live the Dream” is the latest in a series of partnerships between Comcast and the Minneapolis Urban League. Last September, The Comcast Foundation provided a $12,000 grant to the organization’s Community Empowerment Program, which offers services to help prepare low-income families, African Americans and other minority groups for the workplace through job readiness training.

Building on the theme of TV One’s documentary special “MLK: A Dream Deferred,” high school students across the country were invited to write an essay, and Powell chose to question if enough progress has been made toward improving race relations nationally and globally in the 40 years since King’s famous speech.

“On one hand, we’ve made great strides towards racial equality,” said Powell, “but on the other hand, we’ve been standing still for 40 years. Black communities still experience high rates of crime and violence, and our children still suffer from an inadequate education. Moreover, we’ re at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine are at war, and nations are at war in Africa. If we looked beyond what makes us different, we’d see that the content [of] our character is the same in every one of us,” Powell explained, referencing Dr. King.