Oxnard to Honor King With Parade, Observance

Making Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a racially integrated society come alive will be the theme Monday of a parade and observance in Oxnard marking the slain civil rights leader’s birthday.

Other observances start today--which is actually King’s birthday. But Monday’s King Birthday Celebration and Brunch, sponsored by the Martin Luther King Committee of Ventura County, will be the most visible Ventura County event to honor King and comes on the federal holiday named in his honor.

Organizers expect more than 1,000 people to attend Monday’s eighth annual parade and observance in Oxnard in honor of King, the Baptist minister and civil rights leader who preached nonviolence as a way to overcome prejudice.

Also celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day will be Ventura Harbor Village in Ventura, which will host jazz, gospel and blues concerts today through Monday, as well as an African-American art show and poetry readings.

The concerts, featuring the Ventura County Mass Choir and jazz and blues artists Henry Franklin, Jim Calire and John Marx, will be held from noon to 4 p.m. all three days at 1559 Spinnaker Drive.

The art exhibit, which will include African pottery, sculpture, paintings, drawings and jewelry, will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Monday at 1583 Spinnaker Drive. Poet Daisy Cotton will give readings and orator Mikki Bouchard will dramatize the “I Have a Dream” speech that King delivered at the 1963 march on Washington.

King, who would have celebrated his 65th birthday today, organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and led numerous marches to protest racial separation and prejudice. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

King was assassinated in April, 1968.

Before Monday’s observance, local religious leaders, public officials and admirers of King will march from Oxnard’s Plaza Park to the civic auditorium in tribute to the 1965 “freedom march” that King led from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. The march will begin at 8:30 a.m. at Plaza Park, at 5th and C streets.

Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) will deliver the keynote address at the observance, which will be held at 9 a.m. at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium, 800 Hobson Way.

Moore, who was a leader in the campaign to recognize King with a state holiday, said she met the civil rights leader while a student at Cal State Los Angeles.

Ordered by her sorority sisters to get 10 of King’s autographs in Alpha Kappa Alpha’s pink and green colors, Moore said she met with King, who graciously complied. The only problem was her sorority sisters did not believe that someone of King’s stature had honored the frivolous request and destroyed the autographs, she recalled.

“They just didn’t believe me,” Moore said Friday.

But Moore said the meeting helped inspire a lifelong commitment to civil rights. “I was taken with his commitment to involve and empower the people,” Moore said.

The observance will also feature the music of the Martin Luther King Choir, a countywide choral group, and the interdenominational Ventura County Mass Choir.

Ron Jackson, an Oxnard College administrator and a member of the King committee, said it is important for Americans to understand what King stood for.

“King believed that the integrity of each person does not depend on the color of his skin, but the content of his character,” Jackson said. “In today’s contemporary American society, we need to remember that.”

Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn, who will participate in Monday’s parade and observance, also emphasized the importance of King’s message.

“Martin Luther King helped transform this nation,” Flynn said. “He did it with nonviolence--and that’s what is especially important to us.”

A brunch will be served in the civic auditorium’s Oxnard Room after Monday’s observance. Tickets at $6.50 can be reserved by calling 486-2424.

FYI

City, county, state and federal offices will be closed Monday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. No mail will be delivered. Banks will be closed, but many retail businesses, including grocery stores, will open.