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Several parents in the racially troubled Howard Beach neighborhood of New York have demanded disciplinary action against an unidentified white teacher who allowed a white student to paint her face black to portray the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a school play. School District 27 Superintendent Colman Genn said the skit, performed Jan. 14, featured a white third-grade girl who wore black gloves and blackface to portray the slain civil rights leader. The only black in the class at P.S. 232 played Rosa Parks, whose refusal to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Ala., in the 1950s helped spark the civil rights movement.
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