Clinton Elementary School celebrated Black History Month with a series of performances by the fifth grade class for their fellow students, family members and guests.
Led by fifth grade teacher Esther Stewart, the Black History celebration included choral performances of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” “I Just Can’t Give Up Now,” and “Nothing’s Impossible,” with Mikel Sellers serving as a featured singer on each. There was also a reading of the Langston Hughes poem “I, Too,” and a performance of the short play “A World Without Black People.”
The students performed for the third grade on Wednesday, Feb. 11, and the fourth grade the following day, before the public performance Friday, Feb. 13. In addition to family, attendees included Mayor Yvonne Flowers, State Sen. Rob Rolison, district Trustee and city Chamberlain Jamar Cummings, as well as members of district administration. 
Sellers admitted to being nervous, given guests like Flowers and Rolison were in the audience.
“It was hard. We had multiple trainings to get this right,” he said. “We had to keep practicing and practicing until we remembered.”
Stewart said the goal of the activity was “for them to learn about Black history, so that they would know, just because they are part of the Black community, they, too, can achieve great things. That was my main goal, to let them see that other people have made it – they can make it, too.”
“A World Without Black People” features a cavalcade of Black achievement. As the main characters move through a routine day, they find common needed items are unavailable to them because they were invented by a Black person. For each, a student walked to a podium to share the history of that inventor. Afterward, several additional students came to the podium in costume to tell the stories of other high-achieving members of the Black community, like Flowers herself, President Barack Obama, Simone Biles and even Principal Dr. David Scott and Assistant Principal Da Vetta Price.
“They’ve learned a lot about Black History through this program,” Scott told the audience before the show. “I think it’s critically important that we are able to talk about our history (letting) us know that we have been somewhere so we can go somewhere.”
After seeing it, he was even more complimentary to the students and faculty that made it possible.
“You guys brought a tear to my eye, which is hard to do. I’m speechless, which doesn’t happen,” Scott said.
In addition to learning history, Stewart said there were other benefits to taking part in the performances.
“I think that when students perform, it helps to build self-esteem,” she said. “It also helps them academically, because they had to learn how to read the lines, it taught them how to project their voices, how to – just – act. It was a great experience for them.”
Sellers thanked Stewart and the other teachers, as well as his classmates, for making the show happen.
“Singing was always a passion of mine that I liked and I never thought I would get to sing in front of everybody, even the mayor, the senator, everybody that’s important in here,” he said.