60 High School Students Join King March : Activism: Some campus staffers also participate, but the turnout of only four UC Irvine students disappoints organizers of annual tribute.

To the embarrassment of student organizers, only four UC Irvine students came out for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. march Friday under clear skies.

But they and 60 local high school students, plus a few members of the campus staff, made the walk from a nearby park to the student center nonetheless.

“I ask, where is everyone?” Lashea Cooley, vice president of the school’s African American Student Union demanded at the student center rally at the end of the march. “Where are my African American classmates? Where are my Asian American classmates? Where are my Latino classmates?

“Dr. King opened a lot of doors for a lot of communities,” she said. “It’s a shame not more people are here. UCI is supposed to be the seventh most diverse university in the nation. But that’s only true in numbers. In mentality, it isn’t really so.”

But the high school marchers energetically commemorated the slain civil rights leader’s 66th birthday, which is officially observed on Monday, clutching banners that read, “What have you done to fulfill the dream?” and rhythmically shouting, “King had a dream, now we’ve got a goal.”

“Not everyone grew up on MTV,” said Stan Edwards, 15, of University High. “We also watched people protest and struggle for what they believed in, like in China and South Africa. I’ve seen a lot of that. I can do the same thing they did.”

Edwards said he wants “to change the way people look at us. Here in Irvine, when they see a bunch of black people, they think we’re going to take their things. They think all we are is potential criminals. That’s the way they’ve been thinking all their lives.”

Like Edwards, most of the marchers were African American students from the predominantly white high schools. They got permission from parents and teachers to miss school and join the rally, rain or shine.

“It isn’t about weather,” said Tia Pittman, 16. “If Dr. King were alive he would have done the same, whether it’s rain or snow.”

Rob Ameele, 48, a UCI housing director who has attended the march for about 10 years, said that, although the march never drew much more than 100 people, the early ones included mainly UCI students and just a handful of high school students. Now it’s the other way around.

“It’s very difficult not to pass judgment or draw comparisons,” he said. “But I try not to judge. I just do this for myself.”