How Steph Curry and MLK III are working to unite communities through service

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Judy Woodruff has more now on a new partnership in Oakland, California, seeking to bring communities across the country together through service.

  It's part of her series America at a Crossroads.

  (Cheering)

• Judy Woodruff:

  This ear-splitting welcome during assembly time at the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in West Oakland was for some very special guests.

• Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors:

  What's up, everybody? Hello, hello, hello.

  (Cheering)

• Steph Curry:

  That's the energy I'm talking about. That is why we are so excited to be here.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Standing next to the son of the civil rights icon, Steph Curry, the four-time NBA champion for the Golden State warriors, is about as big a celebrity as you could ask for in this city.

• Steph Curry:

  You all have fun at school?

  (Cheering)

• Steph Curry:

  You all have fun at school?

• Judy Woodruff:

  Six years ago, around the time the Warriors left here to move to San Francisco, Curry and his wife, Ayesha, decided they couldn't walk away from this community with so many in need. They started their Eat.Learn Play. Foundation, supporting children's well-being through access to healthy food, literacy and play.

• Ayesha Curry, Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation:

  These are the pillars and the foundation of what makes a child have a happy, thriving, healthy life.

• Judy Woodruff:

  The Currys were here to announce a new partnership with Martin Luther King III and his wife Arndrea Waters King's Realize the Dream Initiative, a nationwide call to action to mobilize 100 million hours of service by 2029, the 100th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth.

• Man:

  That's 100,000 hours right there.

• Judy Woodruff:

  The partnership pledges 100,000 volunteer hours here, a city where one in four African Americans and one in five Latinos live at or below the federal poverty line.

• Steph Curry:

  It is very surreal to kind of be here in this moment, planting our flag in Oakland, to have a moment here at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School and just the idea that we're a part of a — not only a local movement, but a national, hopefully global movement of what service and volunteerism really means and following the legacy of Dr. King.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Coretta Scott King visited here way back in 1972, so this school is particularly important for the King family.

• Martin Luther King III, Civil Rights Leader:

  One of the things dad used to say is, everyone can be great because anybody can serve.

• Judy Woodruff:

  The school is the 21st that Eat.Learn.Play.has transformed here in Oakland. When we visited last week, there was a book giveaway, a new playground and basketball court were being built, new murals painted and new gardens planted.

  Roma Groves-Waters has been principal here for nearly 17 years.

  Do you see a tangible difference that the Currys are making in Oakland?

• Roma Groves-Waters, Principal, Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School:

  Oh, yes.

  The way they transform playgrounds, they make kids want to come to school. So it helps with the chronic absenteeism. It helps with uplifting the kids' spirits, as they're walking around — they can walk around with something nice for a change.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Known as the West Coast center of blues music, West Oakland hosted singers like Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin. It's also where the Black Panther Party got its start.

  But, today, the seaport, highways, a subway system and Oakland's main post office have displaced many in this historically Black neighborhood and contributed to high rates of childhood asthma in a place that offers few options for healthy food.

• Roma Groves-Waters:

  In 2025, we're still living in an area of the have and have-nots, like people have things and a lot of the kids here don't. But we bring the joy to the kids when they come to the school.

• Judy Woodruff:

  That joy could be seen on the students' faces as they soaked in the celebrity guests, who told us they love the smiles, but are here to make a difference in the long run.

• Steph Curry:

  You know, it doesn't happen overnight, but the idea that you can change the experience, school experience for a generation of kids, like, it's a very lofty goal, but it's something that we're committed to, not just financially, but with a clarity of thought about what impact really looks like and how to measure it.

• Judy Woodruff:

  At the nearby Bethlehem Lutheran Church, people gathered for a fireside chat with the Kings and the Currys. Arndrea Waters King said her 17-year-old daughter inspired their most recent call to action, concern for the world she would inherit.

• Arndrea Waters King, Civil Rights Leader:

  At a time when we seem more divided than ever, at a time when services that are so needed in our communities were being cut away, we wanted young people to find themselves.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Her husband reflected on how his parents persevered in their own turbulent times.

• Martin Luther King III:

  I think my father and mother throughout their lives, if there was a — if a person was 90 percent unfortunately bad, dad and mom would focus on that 10 percent good and work to extract that out of the human being.

  And so this process, this project helps to extract good out of everyone.

• Judy Woodruff:

  But he suggests, even for him, it's not an easy task in this particular moment.

  Donald Trump, President of the United States: This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Since taking office in January, President Trump has pledged to end what he calls the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion, saying that our country will be "woke no more." In a backlash against the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, DEI programs have been dismantled across corporations, higher education, and the federal government.

  And Trump has sought to roll back protections offered by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a landmark law and monumental achievement by Martin Luther King Jr.

• Martin Luther King III:

  If dad had lived, we as a nation and world would be on a different trajectory. Our challenge today is still working to get to that different place. As a person who had a front-row seat for the modern civil rights movement, it is really terrible to be at this juncture.

  But my mom used to say something that was so interesting. She said, freedom is never fully won. Each generation must engage to actually extend and sustain freedom. So I was hoping she'd be wrong.

  (Laughter)

• Martin Luther King III:

  I said, Mom — but what she said is just so true. I see it. And it's reinforced.

• Arndrea Waters King:

  I don't know anyone that has lived through the past few years that has not felt that they were touched by chaos. This is a way for us all to come together and build community. I think that there is a thirst, there is a desire, there is a yearning for us all to find something that we can agree on.

• Steph Curry:

  While all the noise and the politics might be the loudest voices in the room, might be pointing us in the wrong direction, like, underneath the surface, we're doing the work that is hopefully meaningful and sustainable, no matter what voice out of Washington's coming out. We're going to continue to show up.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Do you hear that, people saying, can it make a difference at a local level? Can it affect the whole country, ultimately?

• Steph Curry:

  I think what we're trying to do in Oakland is create a model for what real impact looks like.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Through their Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation, the Currys have reached 35,000 Oakland students and raised and invested $90 million in the community.

• Steph Curry:

  I don't care which — what your background is, which side of the line or the aisle you sit on, what experiences you have had in your life or what's informed those. Like, at the end of the day, we understand, for a kid to have a proper childhood, those three pillars need to be there.

• Ayesha Curry:

  It's going to take the community. It's going to take people locking arms and doing it together.

  And so I just want to remind everyone that, when we go out to do this community service and these acts of service, it shouldn't be what we're doing. It just needs to become who we are. And I think we will start to see the change once it just becomes a part of our nature.

• Judy Woodruff:

  A call to service at this divided moment.

  For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Judy Woodruff in Oakland, California.