STAFF PHOTOS BY ADAM ANIK

Student Kwesi Wilson, center, and teacher Richard Gazzillo are at the front of a pack of about 80 sixth-grade Renaissance at Rand School students taking part in a "freedom walk" on Friday, Feb. 27, accompanying a float representing a mountain. The walk was inspired by the late Martin Luther King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech.Sixth grade students from Renaissance at Rand School make their way down Park Street during their "freedom walk" on Friday, Feb. 27.

Sixth graders from Renaissance at Rand School went beyond what they learned in school about legendary civil rights leader Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech by living out, in their own small way, that 'dream' in public for Black History Month.

Over 80 students of various ethnic backgrounds, along with five teachers and the school's principal, went on a "freedom walk" last Friday, Feb. 27, which took them from the school at North Fullerton Avenue and Chestnut Street, going west to Midland Avenue, then to Watchung Avenue, then south to Park Street, and then going past Montclair High School on their way back to the school.

They held signs that read "Live The Dream" and "The Mountain Has Been Overcome," rang a cowbell, and chanted as they traversed the area near their school.

During the walk on a cold, sunny day, several male students were also pushing a wooden float mounted onto an orange Home Depot cart representing a mountain. At the top of the float, there was a sign reading, "Let Freedom Ring," and two dolls, one black and one white, which was about "symbolizing freedom ringing on a mountaintop," taking from lines in King's famous speech, according to the organizers of the walk.

Todd Smith, the sixth-grade science teacher who built the float, wrote about the influence of the speech in a statement to The Montclair Times: "52 years after Dr. Martin Luther King gave his 'I Have A Dream' speech, our country and world still struggles with issues of racism and equality. Our sixth-grade class imagined what it would be like if Dr. King's dream had come true. Today we celebrate for a moment the feeling as if we have reached the mountaintop where freedom rings. And maybe by living our dreams, they just may have come true."

Student Lucy Solomon talked about the significance of the walk, which she said was being considered for a few weeks but took less than a week to organize.

"If Martin [Luther King] was alive, what would he want?," she asked. "Not all the bad things that's happening, but what if it were all the good things?"

Karina Begazo was happy to be involved in the walk.

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Montclair middle schoolers take 'freedom walk' in honor of MLK, Black History Month