Dr MLK Jr School Timeline
(2019 - Ongoing)
Designed BY Kimberly Sutherland with Historical research by Amanda Larriva
We believe that Dr MLK Jr School (our school) was the first school in the nation to change its name in honor of Dr. King.
In April 1968, in the days following the murder of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, a group of middle school students at Highland School in NE Portland began organizing in honor of his death. In the week following Dr King's assassination, these students made a public appeal to PPS School Board and were successfully able to change the name of the school in Dr King's honor.
In the decades following this black youth-led initiative, the name of the neighborhood and the nearby boulevard also changed to honor Dr Martin Luther King Jr.. To learn more about this legacy, click here to read an Oregonian article published April 24, 1968.
In solidarity with this student legacy, in June 2020 we officially changed our name to Dr Martin Luther King Jr School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA) from King School Museum of Contemporary Art.
This timeline, permanently installed at the entrance of the school, tells the history of the student-led name change initiative and major events in the history of the school (1899 - present).
Photo Re-Enactment at the School’s 50th Anniversary
At the 50th anniversary celebration of the school’s name change, we created a participatory project for community members to reenact this important part of our history. Visitors could stand with a banner and recreate a newspaper photograph that documented the school’s name change. Visitors then got a printed copy of the article with their own photo imposed in it.