Invisible giants can’t be found in any history class. They aren’t bound in any volume found on a library shelf. They are the heroes of the civil rights movement many don’t know about, and they’ve come home to where that movement began.

The movement’s invisible giants gathered Friday morning at the School of Discovery to give their message to students from local and visiting schools. Their pictures and stories stood on display at the foot of the stage – nurses, museum directors, mothers. All are participants in the movement, past and present. Many students had never heard their names or seen their faces until Friday.

That changed when the giants stepped onto the stage and their invisibility disappeared.

Deloyd T. Parker Jr., executive director of the SHAPE Community Center in Houston, had students repeat his opening words. “I am because we are, and we are because I am,” Parker said. “We’re all part of a family of inter-dependants. It’s about all of us together.”

Parker, who helped create the SHAPE Community Center more than 35 years ago, told students he was stabbed in the arm six times while observing an election in South Africa. “That man looked just like you or me,” he said. “Don’t let a sometime racist system make you internalize your feelings. Why do you think there’s so much black-on-black crime?”

Shondrell Hunter, the reigning Miss Vermont and Selma native, said Bloody Sunday was for everyone. “We can go to any school,” she said. “We can study anything we want. Martin Luther King Jr. did that for us. People marched across that bridge so you wouldn’t be judged by your skin color. You are our future leaders, and we’re depending on you.”

Faya Ora Rose Toure agreed. As students arrived at Friday’s conference Toure sang to the words of a song. “Keep the dream, don’t let it die and never give up,” she said.

As the crowd grew Toure brought everyone to their feet. “This is like the national anthem. You need to stand for this one,” she said before the words of “We Shall Overcome” started to fill the lungs of everyone present.

“In my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome some day. We are not afraid.”