As part of the new Aotearoa Histories curriculum the school has made an effort to engage with the history of our local area. One aspect of this was the Polynesian Panthers and the mark they made on the history of Ponsonby and Grey Lynn during the tumultuous 1970s. The Polynesian Panthers Legacy Trust was only too happy to respond to an invitation to return to their neighborhood and share with another generation of students the stories of their activism.
The students were practically entranced hearing about the area and the stories of these legends of New Zealand's civil rights movement. The one period for the session that had been allotted flew by and the question and answer session easily occupied a second period. It was particularly pertinent to two of our students as their grandfather had been a founding member of the Panthers at their inception.