On what would have been the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 95th birthday, parades, celebrations and services were held across the nation and right here in San Diego County to commemorate the civil rights icon.
In San Diego's Balboa Park, hundreds gathered for the 36th annual All Peoples Celebration, which promoted Dr. King's message to practice having conversations about change with dignity, according to organizers with Alliance San Diego.
“I would like to see people just honor the humanity in everyone. I think we get caught up in making sections and separating ourselves from other people but we are all human. We all bleed the same and I feel like as we all work together to figure out what dignity means and honoring it in other people we can see each other for who we are,” Advancement Director of Alliance San Diego Miesha Rice said.
The day was expected to be filled with live music, drumline and dance performances and an array of speakers, headlined by Dr. Alisa Warren with the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies. At the event, California state Senator Toni Atkins will also be awarded for public service.
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Hands On San Diego, a volunteer organization, encourages community members to honor King's legacy by participating in one of their MLK Day projects. The organization has events to help homeless individuals, to do farm chores, work with rescue dogs and more.
Community activist Shane Harris was set to present a speech in MLK's honor at an event service breakfast to the unhoused and low-income San Diegans.
The day before the holiday honoring the activist, thousands gathered for San Diego's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade along the Embarcadero. The parade included floats, fraternity and sorority members, drill teams and colleges and universities.
King was born on Jan. 15, 1929. He delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech while leading the 1963 March on Washington and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. That same year, he helped drive the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
King considered racial equality inseparable from alleviating poverty and stopping war. He was just 39 when he was assassinated in 1968 while helping sanitation workers strike for better pay and workplace safety in Memphis, Tennessee.
The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In King's hometown of Atlanta, several speakers at the 56th annual commemorative service for King at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King served as pastor, touched on the divisive partisan climate in the United States.
Bernice King, the daughter of the late civil rights leader, warned that “our humanity is literally under attack.” But she noted that her father’s legacy of nonviolence taught the world that “we can defeat injustice, ignorance and hold people accountable at the same time without seeking to destroy, diminish, demean or cancel them.”
In Philadelphia, President Joe Biden marked the holiday by volunteering at Philabundance, a nonprofit food bank. He stuffed donation boxes with apples and struck up casual chatter with workers at the organization, where he volunteered for the third year in a row to mark the January day of service.
The 29th annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service is billed as the first and largest King day of service in the nation. Volunteer activities included preparing care packages for victims of gun violence and distributing voter information packets.
In Washington, Martin Luther King III participated in a wreath-laying event at his father’s memorial.
Observed federally since 1986, the holiday occurs on the third Monday of January, which this year happens to be King’s actual birthday. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act and King’s Nobel Peace Prize.
