King holiday comes amid a new generation of protests

Larry Copeland | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption MLK Day 2015: Mix of celebrations and protest marches On the annual federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., people took to the streets to honor the civil rights leader and to protest police brutality.

ATLANTA – Against a backdrop of protests around the country over police treatment of black men, Martin Luther King Jr.'s hometown and cities across the USA celebrate his 86th birthday today with marches, rallies and service projects.

In light of fresh memories of those protests and recent acts of violent terrorism in France and Nigeria, the commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King was co-pastor with his father, seemed not so much a celebration of the past as a reminder of how relevant King's message of equality and peace remains 47 years after his assassination.

King's daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, drew a connection between the movement her father led and the response to contemporary killings by police officers of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Eric Garner in New York and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Ohio. She praised "the thousands of youths in a multicultural coalition" who have taken to the streets to demand that the nation be held accountable.

She spoke of the enduring nature of King's message of peace and said the "cry of 2,000" killed by terrorists in Nigeria and "the blood of those who cry out from the ground in Paris" are reminders that the message is as relevant as ever.

Sandra Draper, 50, of Atlanta said peaceful protests in dozens of cities in recent months add a special significance to the annual Ebenezer service. "I just went to see (the movie) Selma, and I was interested to see that here we are 50 years later, and the exact same things are happening," she said. "But I'm really encouraged to see the youths today taking charge and taking to the streets and being passionate about their feelings and just showing up for the cause."

Robin Hayes of suburban Canton, Ga., said the Ebenezer service reminded her of King's commitment to peace. "If the violence can be addressed, whether it's police violence against our communities or the violence we are seeing on an international level like al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula in Paris, Dr. King's message is still the same," she said. "If we don't learn to co-exist in peace, we are all going to be non-existent."

Here and around the nation, people marked the day by feeding the hungry, donating blood or performing some other service to help others, said Steve Klein, spokesman for the King Center.

"More than 2 million people are involved in service projects on the holiday," he said. "The holiday really has not evolved into a day of barbecues."

The King holiday was celebrated in many major cities. In New York, the family of Garner, who died after police put him in a chokehold, planned to lay a wreath at a memorial on a Brooklyn street where two police officers were ambushed in December by a man who said he was avenging Garner's death. A large celebration at the Brooklyn Academy of Music had music, speeches and appearances by the philosopher-activist Cornel West and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. The mayor was set to appear with Al Sharpton, and participants in a #Dream4Justice March were scheduled to march from 110th Street and Lenox Avenue to the United Nations.

In Los Angeles, more than 3,000 people were expected to participate in the 30th annual Kingdom Day Parade, the largest King Day celebration in Southern California. The parade includes a replica of the bus that Rosa Parks, the mother of the civil rights movement, rode in Montgomery on Dec. 1, 1955, when she refused to give her seat to a white rider.

Among other King holiday events around the USA:

•Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson spoke Monday morning at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington.

•In Springfield, Mo., about 2,000 people — from babies in slings to a 13-year-old on crutches to adults in wheelchairs — gathered under blue skies and in balmy temperatures for the Martin Luther King Jr. march. Former City Council member Denny Whayne, 70, who said he helped start the march in 1975, participated in a wheelchair.

"I'm out here because of the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to establish equality — not by the color of your skin but by the content of your character," he said. "We must continue the fight. If everybody is not free, then nobody is free."

•In Des Moines, three-time Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee, 52, who persevered through severe asthma to set world records in the heptathlon, spoke to a crowd during the holiday celebration. "Yes, I had a dream. That dream was all about me," she said. "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, and it was about all of us. That's the difference."

The Olympian, who grew up running barefoot on dirt tracks in St. Louis, urged young people in the crowd to expand their horizons. "Open those books," she said. "Read about the unknown. Understand why there's a struggle."

•At Clemson University in South Carolina, where racial tensions have prompted some black students to call for the university to rename its iconic Tillman Hall because of the 19th-century namesake's racist past, black and white students worked together at a community center boxing up food for the needy.

Clemson President Jim Clements joined in the work of sorting and boxing fruit. "I'm happy to be out here today working along with our students and community members on this special day," he said. "We've had some good discussions on campus."

He didn't want to discuss the Tillman Hall issue but said he believes race relations are moving in a positive direction on campus. "In the college environment, you want an environment in which people can speak openly and freely and share their thoughts," he said.

Byron Lowens, an African-American Ph.D. student in computer science from Monroe, La., worked alongside Clements. He said he has experienced instances of racial tension on campus. "But I really just kind of brushed it off and don't pay any attention to that kind of thing," he said. "But I hope that whatever the situation, it is resolved and people not be looked at as African American, Indian, Chinese, but everybody the same. That's what we're here for today."

•At an interfaith service In south Reno, which celebrated King's legacy a day before the national holiday, the prevailing message was a simple one: The children are the future. Angie Taylor, Washoe County School District trustee and lead speaker at the service, said King's legacy inspired Reno to come together, making it a model community for the future of children.

"If you looked around, there was a rainbow of people, a roomful of people with joy, and we sang together, we prayed together and we held hands together," Taylor said Sunday.

•Hundreds of people in Nashville trekked from a youth rally at Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church to Tennessee State University for a convocation commemorating King. Todd Buchanan, 14, carried a sign with the words "My legacy is loud" as he marched with the throng.

The Montgomery Bell Academy student said the legacy of African Americans is often shut out or glossed over. "We are told not to look into the past. We were not allowed to learn about our ancestors, but we want that to be known," Buchanan said. "It seems that right now, not enough of us are educated and know about the past, so it is tending to repeat itself a little bit with Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin." Martin was a 17-year-old black youth in Sanford, Fla., who was fatally shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman on Feb. 26, 2012; Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in July 2013.

•During an event at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minn., Police Chief Blair Anderson said people's reactions to injustice need to have focus. "When I reflect ... I like to be astute about our history," he said. "Because if we're not, it's no wonder it keeps repeating itself." Anderson said 99% of police officers in uniform do the job for the right reasons, and it's unfortunate so much attention is focused on a small percentage of officers who do wrong.

•In Minneapolis, civil rights attorney Vernon Jordan said the walls of segregation were demolished in the 1960s and '70s, but the rubble remains. "We have knocked down what Martin called the sagging walls of segregation," he said. "What we are dealing with now is the rubble we confront ... a deeply entrenched discrimination."

•In Lawrence County, Miss., about 100 people gathered Sunday evening for the first "Journey to Justice" march, walking down Broad Street in Monticello to the Lawrence County Courthouse, where activists spoke about perceived shortcomings in the criminal justice system. March organizer Cathy Clark said she hoped area youth learned something from the demonstration. "They can take it back to their generation, to their friends in the neighborhood, in the church, their school and say, 'I was there on that day. I made a difference,' " she told WLBT-3.

•In Prattville, Ala., Albert Roberts watched the King Day parade on Chestnut Street. He said King's memory needs to be kept alive for future generations. He noted that 2015 will see the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," the historic day when people marching for the right to vote were severely beaten in Selma on March 7, 1965.

"Young people today don't know the struggles it took to get the right to vote for blacks," he said. "It breaks my heart when I talk to people, black and white, who never bother to vote. It wasn't too long ago that people were denied the right to vote just because of the color of their skin."

•After a Unity Breakfast in Fort Myers, Fla., hundreds of people marched down the boulevard that bears King's name, singing and chanting for freedom. They were bound for a riverside celebration at Centennial Park. Kimberly Morse led a group of 35 people from the Home Depot she manages in neighboring Cape Coral. "The (civil rights) leaders have really paved the way for a young black woman to be a store manager," Morse said. "I am blessed."

•In Louisville, hundreds of people wearing buttons with King's face and the color green packed into the King Solomon Missionary Baptist Church for the 43rd annual PRIDE motorcade and rally honoring the civil rights icon. Bishop Dennis Lyons of Gospel Missionary Baptist Church said the non-violent, community-oriented "Code Green" effort was meant to act as a call for churches, neighbors and the police to work together. "We're trying to start a new relationship with each other," Lyons said. "Let's protect our community, so it can still be here for our next generation."

•At the University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center, the Rev. Marilyn Cunningham of Graves Memorial CME Church posed a question: What would King do if he were here? The answer, she said, is simple: He would get busy. She noted the protests in Ferguson and elsewhere but said simply acknowledging the problem isn't enough.

"Yes, we're rallying. But I want to see something happen from all of this rallying," Cunningham said. "Dr. King was a shaker and mover, and if it didn't shake, he got it shaking. ... Show up! Show your face! Get involved! Do something. Don't sit in your seat and do nothing and think things are going to get better. So let's get busy."

•In New Jersey, The Asbury Park Press newspaper hosted a forum on the value of black lives, the perception of black people and the disparities in jobs, education and opportunities for success. "When real opportunities are not made available to people, race becomes what people focus on," said Kasturi Dasgupta, a professor of sociology at Georgian Court University in Lakewood, N.J. "Have we made it possible in this country for each person to be the best that they can be?

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King was born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta. In 1983, Congress established his birthday as a federal holiday. The nation has observed the holiday on the third Monday in January since 1986.

The King holiday celebration this year is happening as a new generation of Americans is introduced to the civil rights martyr and the movement he led through the movie Selma, director Ava DuVernay's historical drama about those Bloody Sunday events. David Oyelowo, who plays King, spoke this morning at Ebenezer and seemed overcome with emotion while discussing what it was like "to step into Dr. King's shoes."

Maurice Hobson, an assistant professor of African American Studies at Georgia State University, said Selma is valuable on this day: "It hammers home to a young generation how with Michael Brown, Eric Garner … and others who have been marginalized, this is not a new conversation. It's ongoing."

Contributing: Rick Neale of Florida Today in Melbourne; Bill McMichael of The News Journal in Wilmington, Del.; Stephen Herzog of the Springfield News-Leader in Missouri; MacKenzie Elmer of The Des Moines Register; Marcella Corona of the Reno Gazette-Journal; Marty Roney of The Montgomery Advertiser in Alabama; Holly Meyer of The Tennessean; Stephanie Dickrell of the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota; Therese Apel of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, MIss.; Ron Barnett of The Greenville News in South Carolina; Stacey Henson of The News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla.; Matthew Glowicki of The Louisville Courier-Journal; Matthew Daneman of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in New York; Nicquel Terry of The Asbury Park Press in New Jersey; and Reuters.