Through partnering with the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center and Northlight Theatre, local teens had an opportunity to create an original work of theater rife with social justice themes and history, work with local professional theater directors and present their art to over 500 local audience members of all ages. Performers and teen attendees were able to meet and hear from author Andrea Davis Pinkney about the creation of the book. This project brought free, socially-relevant art to Skokie.

The play ran concurrently with the Illinois Holocaust Museum’s Steve Schapiro civil rights photography exhibit and Northlight Theatre’s “Nina Simone: Four Women” production about the writing of Simone’s protest song, “Mississippi Goddam." These three cultural offerings, along with Pinkney’s presentations, provided audiences the opportunities to witness and explore deeply significant events in the civil rights movement during the watershed years of 1968-1969 through art, theater, history, discussion and literature.

Martin Rising was viewed by 500 members of the public, including over 300 local middle school students who saw the production during a field trip to the Illinois Holocaust Museum. A founding member of the museum said that the production “was the kind of educational and artistic event for which the museum was built.” The teens in the cast reported feeling deeply connected to each other as artists and friends and motivated to create more socially-engaged theater, and expressed a deeper understanding of MLK's life and legacy.