RACINE, Wis. — Every Tuesday morning before classes start, the No Place for Hate group’s executive board meets with their advisor, Bryan Wright, at Walden III Middle and High School.

During their meeting on Jan. 31, the group talked about the events being planned for Black History Month.

“We have our Decades, Through the Decades Black History Program, we have a speaker planned for that as well,” said Kennedy Williams, the group’s secretary and a senior at Walden High School. 

The Through the Decades Black History Program is a planned dance and culture event, but it’s just one of several things they have planned for the semester.

In the past year, the group has done quite a bit.

“We just come up with a bunch of big activities for everyone to be included in, like our poetry contest which spread equality and culture,” Williams said. “We went to schools for Christmas, ‘Shoebox Christmas,’ and gave children presents and stuff like that."

The whole purpose of the group, and the events they hold, is to teach the students at all ages that there is — like the group’s name — no place for hate.

“It’s needed,” Williams said. “There’s always hard times, and groups of kids are always not recognized. So when a group of kids come to gather and go out into the world and help, I think it’s really special for everyone.”

No Place for Hate is an initiative through the Anti-Defamation League to help fight bullying, bias and hatred. There are more than 1,600 No Place for Hate groups in K-12 schools across the country.

The work the students at Walden are doing is getting noticed. They were the only students across a nine state region to be invited to the ADL’s winter conference in Chicago in December.

Wright said the students should be proud.

“These students have come in here committed to what we are trying to accomplish,” Wright said. “They have put their own relative needs aside, and decided to serve the community. Any time you have a students be of public service, that’s an outstanding thing.”

Williams graduates this year, but she’s optimistic about the future.

“My hope is just that it gets bigger and better,” she said.

Getting bigger and better, to make sure the students in Racine know they are loved and accepted, and that there truly is no place for hate.