Bearden High School - Echo Yearbook (Knoxville, TN)

Page 9 text:

A school lives on; but a school with spirit and pride prospers. Perhaps a stick represents an enthusiasm; but there is greater meaning. When we strive with our last ounce of courage and do our best, then no more can be asked of us and the fulfillment of life will be ours. 5

Page 8 text:

 I am youth and I am a paradox. I cloak my emotions in the garb of unconcern. If I seem indifferent, it is because I feel too deeply. If I seem boastful, it is to cover my shortcomings. My exuberance is a shield of my limitations. I am a youth and I long to be different, stronger, more honest, more feeling, more alive than other men. I am youth and I long to be a conformist ... to dress, act and talk like the crowd. I am a realist. Be honest with me; I can sense hypocrisy and I loathe it. I cannot con-, done a leader who does not know the way, show the way, go the way. I am an idealist. I will act on principle for its sake alone. I am a child. Sixteen does not make me too old to climb on my father's lap when my castles in the sky come tumbling down. I am an age of mountainous love and deep despair. I am unaware of any real indifference. The pain of all creatures is personal to me. I burn with a rising tide of fury at a restroom sign, 'White Only'. I feel needed and though the cynic says I am too precious a gift to waste on the young, who else would accept my turbulent, bittersweet, dreaming ways? Yes, I am youth and I am a paradox; a contradiction to myself; an enigma to others; and yet, I am the eternal hope of the world. I am the key to the future . . . cherish me! 4

Page 10 text:

t I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed . . . that all men are created equal. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we let it ring, we will speed that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last, free at last Thank God Almighty, we're free at last. Yes, it is we that will make this dream a reality. When we put aside our petty prejudices and trivial thoughts, perhaps the black man and the Indian will gain equal opportunities, and all men will have economic and social equality. Let us seek a newer world. 6