Official Oakland rolled out the welcome mat in the marble-floored rotunda of the Ron Dellums Federal Building for students, interns and staff of Merritt College’s Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center.

The guests of honor had returned home after a month in Kern County, where they studied, slept on floors and sweated 100-degree-plus temperatures in a voter engagement and registration drive.

Seventeen of the 33 summer soldiers were born in Oakland, the rest from the center’s sister organization in Washington state, the Institute for Community Leadership, Freedom Center spokeswoman Nyla Rosen said.

Former Mayor Elihu Harris emceed the Aug. 4 event, which featured Congresswoman Barbara Lee, United Farm Workers veteran Dolores Huerta and Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, among others.

The students, Lee said, “aren’t future leaders, they are leaders already.”

In interviews, students described the summer they had spent reaching out to potential voters in the conservative county.

“We got to meet so many people who were disappointed with the system and had no hope in voting,” said Payton Silket, 18, a recent Bishop O’Dowd graduate who is off to Pepperdine University to study political science this fall.

“But when they saw us come to their doorstep and explain to them that they are our voice, that they hold our future in their hands and that we need them to speak up, it touched their hearts and their minds and it gave them hope,” Silket said.

“We learned how to put the ‘we’ before the ‘I,’ and we had hecka fun watching our peers grow and learn from the mishaps, the importance of teamwork, developing systems,” said Skyline High’s Angela Drake, 15.

“In bettering ourselves, we have to work with one another to become our nobler selves,” she said.

“A whole month together made us like family,” said Andres Bustamante, 17, a senior at Kipp King Collegiate in San Lorenzo.

“Going down to Bakersfield was impactful to my life, because I’ve had family members who worked in the field. You start to realize more of the little things. These people work so hard to put this food on my table!” he said.

The students, after attending civic engagement classes, knocked on 6,750 Kern County doors and registered 254 voters.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center, started in 1993, is dedicated to promoting King’s principles of nonviolence, social change, peace, racial unity and economic justice.

It operates out of Merritt College and is busy year-round with classes and seminars, particularly when school is out, for students who are recommended by educators and community leaders. Their vetting process includes home visits to ensure the student’s application has support from home.

Drake said her older sister had preceded her at the Freedom Center and she joined up “as soon as I knew that I could.”

Over the past 15 years, students taking part in Freedom Center programs have a 100 percent high school graduation, with 94 percent getting college degrees, according to a flier available at last week’s event.

The center’s program includes weeklong winter holiday residencies devoted to studying King’s legacy, Thanksgiving sessions on the meaning of gratitude and summer travel programs addressing history, social justice and current events.

The center chose the Kern County voter registration drive in conjunction with the Dolores Huerta Foundation.

“When you see their faces,” Camila Chavez, director of the Dolores Huerta Foundation and niece of Cesar Chavez, said of the students, “how can you say no to them?”

She recounted how one day a man in his 70s initially told the young visitors, “Get off my property!” But the students persisted, and he invited them to come back later. “I want you to register my three adult children.”

“They got those three voters because they did not walk away,” she said. “We have another enemy about as big as the violence of racism — apathy.”

Huerta said looking back, “We thought that by now, it would be a lot better.”

But “we have huge pockets of injustice. Those of us who have been in the movement, we have to say, ‘You know what? We are the only ones who can change it.’ My grandchildren will still have to face the same issues I did growing up. It’s not going to go away by itself,” Huerta said.

She spoke admiringly of the students’ dedication, and recalled asking them if the 100-plus degree temperatures were bothering them. “No, because we know the farmers are out there working in this heat” came the reply, Huerta said. “When they say boot camp, they mean it,” she said to laughter.

Speaking of the center, she said, “This model that they have created here is one we should take to other parts of the country.”

Black Panthers icon Bobby Seale agreed. “This is a continuation of our human liberation struggle,” he said. “To me, this is what it’s all about.”

Contact Mark Hedin at 510-293-2452 or mhedin@bayareanewsgroup.com.