Pleasant Valley Middle School sixth-graders Courtney Beyer and Stephanie Higgins knew of Martin Luther King Jr., but both said they didn’t know how his impact on the world is still being felt today until they made a film about him.
Courtney, 12, and Stephanie, 11, spent about eight months working on their 10-minute documentary, “The Need for Change, the Dream, the Reality: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Leadership and Legacy,” and recently earned the State Archivist’s Award for outstanding use of primary sources from the Washington State Archives.
“We have an interest in equality and justice no matter your skin color,” Courtney said. “It made sense to do our project on Martin Luther King Jr. and learn more about him.”
For their film, the students used footage and information from the state archives in Olympia, as well as interviews they conducted with people who have ties to King. The film contained audio of an interview with activist photographer Bob Fitch, who spent years photographing King and the civil rights movement. Fitch was in Vancouver for a talk hosted by the Clark County Democrats, and the two students’ teacher, Irene Soohoo, saw he was going to be in town and suggesting reaching out for an interview.
Courtney and Stephanie’s movie also featured video of an interview they conducted with Sara Boone, who last year became Portland Fire & Rescue’s first African-American chief officer when she was sworn in as battalion chief. She spoke about how King and other civil rights leaders paved the way for her, and how different her life was growing up after being adopted by a white family.
“History is everywhere,” Soohoo said. “That’s what was so gratifying about their project. Everyone has a story, and so many people were willing to share.”
The film also uses a lot of images, some of them taken by Fitch, with the two girls trading off narrator duties to talk about King while civil rights songs, such as Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” and Seal’s cover of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” played in the background.
Toward the end of the film, Courtney and Stephanie included an image from a protest last year in support of Eric Garner, who died after being wrestled to the ground by a police officer in New York.
“We wanted our film to be a timeline,” Stephanie said. “We wanted to show all the change King made and that while things are better now, racial problems are still happening.”
The two sixth-graders traveled to Olympia on May 26 to show their film to Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman and a group of 20-30 people at the state archives, where they were presented with medals for winning the archivist’s award. The two said it was exciting to meet Wyman, and they got to tour the archives building.
“They let us walk around and take pictures,” Courtney said. “When we were there before to do work, you weren’t allowed to take pictures.”
It was the first time either of the two students made a film, but both said they would like to enter the contest together again next year. While the two knew each other before being paired up, working on the documentary turned out to be an informative and giggle-heavy eight months.
“Sometimes we would have to run outside to try and stop laughing,” said Stephanie. “One time I mispronounced ‘public’ as ‘plublic’ and it took forever for us to stop laughing.”
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