On Monday morning, about 15 children ranging in age from 5 to 11 learned about Martin Luther King Jr. by watching videos from PBS Kids, reading books recommended by The King Center, and completing an art project using multicolored tissue paper to decorate an outline of their own hands, and cutting out the hands to be placed on a tree celebrating their differences and the beauty we can make by coming together.

Each child placed one of their hands on the tree, on display at Art in the Loft, and took the other one home to hang in the window to remind them what they learned.

“You can attach this to the window, and all the colors will look really cool,” said 11-year-old Greyson Christensen-Cooper, who was helping a younger child, Zelda, with her project.

Zelda’s favorite color is pink, the 5-year-old said, adding, “and blue!”

News Photo by Darby Hinkley Sandra Pilgrim Lewis addresses attendees on Monday night at Art in the Loft. She and other members of the MLK Beloved Community of Northeast Michigan committee led the event, which included a showing of a video from The King Center in Atlanta, followed by small-group discussion and sharing.

“These colors will make it more good,” she said while gluing more tissue paper to her paper hand. “It’s, like, so fun!”

Mary Christensen-Cooper facilitated the children’s project, with help from her husband Justin Christensen-Cooper.

While the kiddos were having fun learning upstairs, parents and other adults congregated in the Nucleus Lounge, located downstairs in the Center Building. They watched a video from the King Center, followed by discussion.

Then, in the evening, community members convened at Art in the Loft to watch a different video from the King Center, followed by small-group discussion and sharing with the whole group.

Discussion leaders included Sandra Pilgrim Lewis, DVS Director Uniting Three Fires Against Violence, Lenny Avery, executive director of Alcona County Commission on Aging, and Tom Orth, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church.

The video from the King Center shown at the evening event detailed how “the compassion of a probation officer won over the friendship of a Neo-Nazi, causing him to denounce his hatred, and choose love,” moderator Terrence Jenkins said in the video.

The video is called “Beyond the Racial Divide: A Journey to Reconciliation,” available to watch at thekingcenter.org, where you can find many other videos and resources about diversity and racism.

“It takes more time and effort to hate than it does to love,” Michael Kent, the former white supremacist, said in the video. “If we open up our hearts to one another, we can overcome this.”

After watching the video, Pilgrim Lewis addressed attendees before they broke into small groups to discuss steps they can take to help lessen racism and celebrate diversity.

“My mom used to say, ‘If we were all the same, there wouldn’t be tapestries, and there wouldn’t be flower gardens … if we were all the same, we were all of the same thread, and you wove us all together, that wouldn’t be a piece of art,'” Pilgrim Lewis said. “To say you don’t see color, for me, what a dull world that would be.”

She said we should celebrate our differences and realize we are more beautiful together.

“We can’t go forward unless we’re engaged together,” Orth said at the end of the event. “We have to find a way to have conversations together.”