The Next Step In The Dream

BROOKSVILLE - He struggled with words like "oppression" and "insufficient" and "promissory."

At one point, a gust of wind blew his script off the podium.

But by the time young Deiontae Baker got to the climax of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech, he was on a roll.

"Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last," Baker recited, prompting cheers from the crowd.

Baker was one of several youngsters with the Hernando County NAACP Youth Council who helped celebrate King's legacy in front of a crowd of roughly 100 people at Kennedy Park on Monday. The youth council sponsored the event.

The NAACP Drill Team came out clapping, snapping and stepping as they delivered the geographical references from King's speech, from the "prodigious mountains of New Hampshire" to the "molehills of Mississippi."

"Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around," they sang, "gonna keep on walkin' and talkin' on the freedom trail."

By the time keynote speaker James Yant got up to speak, many youngsters had already hit the playground.

The program had stretched beyond an hour, and the nearby swings and colorful playground equipment beckoned temptingly under a cloudless blue sky.

But as Yant, a Spring Hill insurance agent and county resident for nearly three decades, approached the podium, a chaperone told the youth counselors to round up the children and bring them back toward the podium so they could hear the speech.

Yant, it turns out, had message for them.

"I constantly wonder if the dream is alive in the hearts and minds of our future," Yant said. "Can a person accomplish anything without a dream? Let me say to the youth, you are our dream and our hope."

He offered some tips passed on by his grandfather:

"Develop a spiritual life."

"Continue to develop your mind because learning is life long."

"Do things right the first time because it's always easier."

"Learn when enough is enough."

Though she spoke before Yant, it was as though Nickeyva Martin, president of the Youth Council, had an answer for him.

"We want to keep the dream alive," Martin said. "We, the youth, are the future, the hope, the new light."

Sometimes, Martin admitted, "we don't make good choices. But rest assured, things happen for a reason."

"The dream is reality," Martin said, "and we are part of it."

Wayman Boggs, president of the Hernando chapter of the NAACP, was the last to speak.

If King returned, Boggs said, he would bristle at the high number of Americans in jail, at a health care system inaccessible to many, at an adult population not going far enough to inspire the next generation.

"We have come a long way," Boggs said, "yet we still have a long journey ahead."

With that, everyone stood to sing, "We Shall Overcome."

The adults headed for a lunch of ribs and greens.

The kids went back to the playground.