King Day Celebrated With Pride, Hope

In stirring church services and other memorials marking the 60th birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Orange County residents celebrated the progress toward King’s dream of equality but acknowledged that there is still a long way to go.

Bigotry still exists, as seen in the burning of a cross at the home of a black family in Westminster last summer and the activities of the white supremacist Skinheads. All the more reason, black leaders exhorted people of all colors, to keep the dream alive.

“We come to eulogize this great American patriot and drum major for peace and justice . . . ,” the Rev. John Nix-McReynolds told an overflow audience at the Second Baptist Church of Santa Ana. “Our purpose is to tell the hate-filled Skinheads and Neo-Nazis that this world is driven not by hate but by love.”

Worshipers rose to their feet, clapping, as McReynolds, pastor of the church, segued into King’s famous speech from the 1963 March on Washington. McReynolds, like King, ended emotionally with the Negro spiritual chorus:

Free at last, free at last.

Thank God Almighty we’re free at last.

Crowds of more than 750 spilled out into the lobby and offices of the church Monday during the 3 hours of songs, sermons and uplifting speeches. Preachers and others continuing the fight for equality recounted the milestones of the Civil Rights Movement and described the challenges of the future.

“We can now ride in the front of the bus,” Lizzie Lyles, an employees union president at the Santa Ana Unified School District, told the gathering. “We can vote. We can sit at the lunch counter with white people. But how many lunch counters do we own? The light of Dr. King’s dream has grown dim in the last 20 years. We must rediscover it.”

The service honoring King, who was assassinated in Memphis in April, 1968, touched a personal chord for many in the crowd.

“I came to remember Dr. King because that is what this day is for,” Santa Ana resident Estelle White said.

White brightened as she told of her brush with King in 1968, when the powerful preacher halted his entourage at the Atlanta airport and paused to bless her mentally retarded son. White and her son, Jay, were changing planes at the time and did not realize that King was in the airport until an excited throng announced his arrival.

“Sitting in church, I was thinking about that moment,” White said. “My son

is 30 now, and he has never forgotten that Martin Luther King reached out and blessed him.”

To Greg Watson of Fountain Valley, the memorials Monday were an important reminder of “what the movement stands for. There is still racism in this county, and it’s getting worse.”

Elsewhere in the county, commemorations were held by the Neighbors organization, a social network of black families, and the Orange County branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

At a Neighbors luncheon at a Santa Ana hotel in honor of King, the theme was “Back to Basics.” Getting back to the basics means that black people must continue the struggle for economic equality and to persevere in higher education, said Patrick Rhodes, a member of the organization. If King were alive today, Rhodes said, he would not be content with the status quo.

“I believe he would be pressing for greater economic rights of black people and be at the forefront of the struggle for the homeless,” Rhodes said. Blacks should continue to “speak out against apartheid in South Africa” because, “as King said, ‘we are not free until all black people are free.’ ”

Prominent lawyer Milton Grimes, one of the first black lawyers to practice in Orange County, urged youths at the luncheon to “fight like Mike Tyson” to achieve the goals that may look impossible at the outset.

Grimes, whose grandparents were sharecroppers, said King “is responsible for where we (black people) are today.”

About 150 people turned out for the NAACP event Monday evening at Santa Ana Valley High School. The memorial celebration included performances by local choirs and readings of poetry and of some of King’s speeches.

James Colquitt, leader of the NAACP Orange County chapter, told the mostly black audience that people of all races should celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“This is not a black holiday,” Colquitt said.