‘We still have a long way to go.’ : King Praised in Song, Speech

More than 600 Orange County residents, many of whom were taking at least part of the day off work, attended a memorial service Monday for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Second Baptist Church in Santa Ana.

It was a day filled with the sounds of gospel songs and the voices of ministers speaking about the slain civil rights leader’s work.

“Never let us let other people forget who we are,” the Rev. John Nix McReynolds of the Second Baptist Church said during the stirring two-hour service. “Let them know that you’ve not forgotten the dream. You simply tell them that freedom rings from Saddleback Mountain to the flatlands of Santa Ana. . . .”

“It doesn’t matter whether their hair is blond and their eyes are blue. You tell them, ‘I am somebody.’ ”

Said the Rev. Van Roberson of Santa Ana’s St. James Missionary Baptist Church in an interview after the service: “This is a day when we come together and have a strong impact on the rest of the community. We say to everyone, ‘Yes, there is blackness in Orange County.’

“It’s a day when we can celebrate being able to buy a home where we want to and not have to worry about someone burning a cross in our front yard. That’s over with. There’s no two separate fountains, a black one and a white one. There is only one.”

Several ministers spoke about black freedom during the service at the church at 1915 W. MacFadden Ave., using the Bible to explain King’s work. McReynolds likened King to Moses leading his people to the promised land.

“People were fearful to stand up to the Pharaoh of Jim Crow,” McReynolds said after the service. “ . . . We look at him in Mosaic terms as a person who came and said, ‘Let my people go.’ ”

But he added that, even though blacks have made progress since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, “we still have a long way to go.”

“We have homeless people and hungry people,” McReynolds said. “And we are still saying to our government, ‘Let my people go.’ In Africa, we’re saying to Pretoria, ‘Let my people go.’ ”

The Rev. Robert M. Ewing Jr. of the First Mission Baptist Church in Santa Ana urged the audience to keep King’s dream alive by “feeling the need to be free.”

“Keep feeling the need to be free of heroin, crack and cocaine,” he said. “Keep feeling the need to be free of gang violence. Keep feeling the need to be free of sexual immorality.”

Among those who attended the service was Darrell Roberts, 33, a teacher at Santa Ana’s Valley High School. Roberts said he takes the day off each year to observe King’s birthday.

“It’s a shame it’s taken this long for America to honor this man nationally,” Roberts said.

He said he would have taken the day off regardless of whether school had been in session, “just like I would for Washington’s or Lincoln’s birthday.”

City employees had the option of using a floating holiday to observe King’s birthday or taking three hours off with pay to attend the memorial service, Santa Ana Deputy City Manager Rex Swanson said. Swanson said City Manager David N. Ream and Deputy City Manager Jan Perkins represented the City of Santa Ana at the service.

After the service, McReynolds told reporters that he was “disappointed” that the city had decided against closing its offices for the holiday.

“This is not a black holiday,” he said. “It’s an American holiday.

“We didn’t do anything bad today. We just worshiped and discussed what freedom is. Freedom is an American concept.”

He added that he is optimistic about persuading the city to recognize the holiday next year. Santa Ana has the largest black population in Orange County.

Related story in Part I, Page 1.