Daily Lesson in Civil Rights : Poignant Groundbreaking Held for Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary

During a poignant ceremony filled with words of hope and equality, Santa Ana Unified School District officials Friday broke ground on the county’s first school to be named after slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Several people wiped away tears during the midmorning ceremony as speakers recalled King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and his pleas for brotherhood during the 1964 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.

At one point, Fran Williams, chairwoman of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, told the audience that naming an elementary school for King was especially appropriate because “he had an unwavering love and respect for children, all children. He looked upon them as humanity’s greatest gift.”

About 70 people, including school board members Sal Mendoza, Audrey Yamagata-Noji, Rob Balen and Rosemarie Avila and district Supt. Rudy Castruita, attended the groundbreaking of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. The five-acre campus, at 1001 Graham Lane, is scheduled to open in fall, 1995. It will serve about 700 students in kindergarten through fifth grades, said district spokeswoman Diane Thomas.

After spirituals sung by women from a local church, Rabbi Bernie King of the Shir Ha-Ma’Alot Harbor Reform Temple in Newport Beach described the civil rights leader during the march to Montgomery.

After witnessing “the hell of segregation” and racial prejudice during that march, “I had no idea at that time that 25 years later we’d be honoring King as one of the great Americans of this century,” he said.

The rabbi added later that the school could become a symbol “that will break down the barriers between races, religions and ethnic groups.”

Praising the district for honoring King, Van Roberson, pastor of Greater Light Missionary Baptist Church in Santa Ana, said King’s memory would encourage students to realize their own hopes and dreams.

“Dr. King represented equality for all mankind. He inspired people to be the very best they could be,” he said.

Closing the ceremony, John McReynolds, senior pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Santa Ana, offered a dramatic recitation of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The audience broke into applause when he concluded the speech with the words, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we’re free at last.”

District officials and several speakers then plunged shovels into a mound of earth and turned them over, formally breaking ground on a $12.7-million campus intended to help alleviate serious overcrowding at the district, which has about 49,000 students.

Santa Ana Unified is the county’s largest school district and the eighth largest in the state. Since the late 1970s, the student population has been growing by about 1,000 students a year, and most district schools exceed their capacities. Because of the time it takes to get money for new school construction, the district uses 500 portable classrooms on campuses to meet the needs of students, Thomas said.

Along with the addition of King Elementary, the district is expected to open Pio Pico Elementary School next year, which will accommodate nearly 700 students, she said.

King Elementary’s classrooms will include a fiber-optic communication system, which will be able to transmit telephone, video and computer data signals. With the televisions mounted in each classroom, teachers will be able to call up educational videos from a central library, Thomas said.