Rockers Morello, Reilly recall days at Libertyville High
"Imagine the world you really want and fight for it, whatever you do."
That was the message Tom Morello, best known as guitarist of the band Rage Against the Machine, brought to students Monday at Libertyville High School.
Morello was in town with fellow Libertyville High alum and musician Ike Reilly to talk about their experiences at the school, as part of its Centennial Year Celebration.
"The world is not going to change itself ... If you decide to sit it out, someone else is going to do it and you might not like what they do with it," said Morello, who graduated from Libertyville High in 1982.
While both he and Reilly attended LHS about the same time - Reilly graduated in 1980 - they didn't know one another and took different paths to rock fame.
Reilly, who leads the band The Ike Reilly Assassination, said Monday that he finished in the bottom 10 percent of his high school class, but played basketball and football. Morello took part in every theater production and went on to attend Harvard University.
Both came to music late. Morello, named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of history's 100 greatest guitarists, didn't play until he was 17 years old. Reilly worked as a hotel doorman for 13 years and didn't sign his first record contract until he was 38.
Morello said when his family moved to Libertyville in the 1970s their landlord told them they were the first people of color in the village.
While he enjoyed growing up in Libertyville, Morello said the racism he experienced growing up there fueled the rage that he channeled into music. He told students he was bullied for being black and people left KKK literature on the bulletin board in the classroom of his mother, Mary Morello, when she taught at Libertyville High.
Reilly recalled Mary Morello as one of a few teachers at the school who broadened his world view.
Morello told students the story of how he and classmates working for the student newspaper Drops of Ink started an alternate publication after school administrators told them to stick to positive stories. Morello said they called their new paper Pulse and filled it with articles and political cartoons criticizing the administration.
When administrators tried to censor them, Morello said students invited the local chapter of the ACLU to help defend their rights.
"I remember thinking 'I'm 16 years old and there's nothing I can't do,'" Morello said.