Story Created:
Jan 18, 2009 at 7:14 PM PST
Story Updated:
Jan 19, 2009 at 2:53 AM PST
Monday's observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the Southland will include many opportunities to reach out to people in need and celebrations of civil rights gains, including Barack Obama's election as president.
The King Holiday marks the start of Obama's Renew America Together initiative, which calls on Americans to serve their communities throughout the year.
The public is being asked to help prepare and serve the evening meal at the Los Angeles Mission; distribute blankets made by elementary school students; make donations to food drives at the Museum of Tolerance, UCLA and various grocery stores and an effort to collect socks and underwear for the
homeless.
There will also be clean-ups in Temple City, Van Nuys Sherman Oaks Park, along Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake and various schools; a blood drive at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and a collection of books for underserved children in Mombasa, Kenya, Long Beach's newest sister city.
Details on those events and others are available online at www.usaservice.org.
Celebrations will be held in South Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Pasadena.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, will be the grand marshal and Army Lt. Gen. David Valcourt the military grand marshal of the 24th annual Kingdom Day Parade, set to begin at 10:30 a.m. at Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevard and Western Avenue in South Los Angeles.
Pasadena's Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration will be held at Jackie Robinson Park and include music and speakers.
Santa Monica's 24th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration at the SGI-USA Auditorium will feature a multi-ethnic interfaith program including
inspirational readings, a performance by the Angel City Chorale, and a
presentation of scholarships. A Community Involvement Fair will follow.
The inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast celebration will be held at USC, commemorating what organizers describe as "a transformative partnership between the Los Angeles Police Department and the African American community" since William J. Bratton became chief in 2002.
To Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is "where we
concretely work together to reaffirm that dream by continuing to stand up for civil rights, continuing to stand up against bigotry, continuing to build the
bridges of understanding [and] tolerance that are so important."
Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first celebrated as a federal holiday in 1986 under a law signed by then-President Ronald Reagan. King and George
Washington are the only Americans with federal holidays celebrating their birth.
King's activism in marches and speeches, most famously the "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963, helped foster the passage of civil rights laws and end segregation.
In 1964, at the age of 35, King became the youngest person up to that time to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., at the age of 39.
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