Southland Commemorates King With Speeches, Parades

Some walked. Some talked. But all were carrying the message of justice Monday as the life and legacy of civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was commemorated.

Members of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a World War II unit of black fliers, helped lead 700 marchers down Regent Street in Los Angeles to a memorial service where they were urged to continue King’s fight at the ballot box.

Elsewhere in Los Angeles, youth groups and bands stepped out in the Crenshaw district for a parade watched by thousands along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

In a Claremont College speech, theologian Vincent Harding of Denver discussed the evolution of King’s symbolism since his 1968 assassination.

Much has changed since that slaying, those honoring King acknowledged. But some things haven’t.

“Racism is not over,” the Rt. Rev. Chester L. Talton, assistant bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, told participants in a diocese-sponsored anti-racism dialogue.

Talton said hate still lurks in the most unlikely of places--including the courtyard at an Encino church where a racial slur was scrawled two months ago.

“We need to address this issue, not just about how it affects me, but how it affects all of us,” he said.

Helenor Webb, head of the Episcopalian Commission on Black Ministry, said racism is something the clergy needs to address within its own ranks too.

“Most of the people in official positions in the church are white,” she said. “We are still not equal as people of color within the church.”

Rain dampened Martin Luther King Day parades in Los Angeles and Inglewood.

But as sunlight began peeking through the clouds, drum majors blew their whistles, drummers again pounded their skins and the Los Angeles tribute rolled on along King Boulevard.

Arthur J. Jones brought his son from his mother’s house in Monrovia to see the event.

“I brought him here because if he doesn’t understand King’s legacy then we’re going to revert right back where we started before King’s struggle,” Jones said.

“We’ve come a long way since [1962] when I couldn’t rent an apartment only a few miles from here. But the struggle still has a way to go.

The parade was delayed slightly when a shouting match between rival gangs resulted in gunshots being fired in the air along the parade route near Western Avenue. No one was injured, police said. But some onlookers were dismayed. “I think Dr. King would be shedding tears over something like this,” said Occerita Oliver, who came to see her 17-year-old daughter march with the Manual Arts High School drill team.

Inglewood marchers were urged by keynote speaker Edward Vincent, the city’s former mayor and current 51st District assemblyman, to continue fighting for affirmative action. “But don’t get mad, don’t get violent. Get even at the election polls.”

Many in the crowd agreed.

“We’re not where we want to be, but we’re certainly not where we used to be,” said Thyrie Gordon, whose children, Tyree and Brittney, marched in the parade.

Other Los Angeles-area commemorations included a prayer breakfast at Verbum Dei High School co-sponsored by the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and a ceremony at John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica led by Santa Monica College and the Martin Luther King Jr. Westside Coalition.

At Claremont College, theology professor and King historian Harding reminded those attending the annual King Commemorative Celebration that there is more to the civil rights leader than his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

He told his audience to study King’s actions as well as his words. “Watch him. If he is to help America, we have to see him beyond the Washington Mall. We have to watch him go to jail in Selma, Ala., in 1965. We have to see the shadows as well as the light shining on him.”

A panel of students also offered their reflections.

Natalie West, a senior at Claremont McKenna College, spoke of King’s influence on her life.

“People used to ask me if my parents were descended from slaves. I would answer ‘Uh, er, um, no.’ ” She said she did not overcome the reluctance to talk about her heritage until as a sixth-grader she heard King’s “I Have a Dream” speech for the first time.

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In Ventura County, about 100 people braved a morning downpour in Oxnard to march from Plaza Park to the Oxnard Performing Arts Center. There, John Hill, director of the Los Angeles County Office of Affirmative Action Compliance, was keynote speaker.

A light drizzle turned to a deluge about a block into the march, making the traditional refrains of “We Shall Overcome” seem especially appropriate.

“This just reminds me of Selma and Montgomery,” said one marcher, the Rev. Terrell Penny, 38, of Trueway Baptist Church in Camarillo. “We still need more unity and peace, and this weather has drawn us closer together.”

Elsewhere across the country, King--who was born Jan. 15, 1929, and killed April 4, 1968--was honored in different ways.

Volunteers in Atlanta, where King was born, honored him by sprucing up dilapidated schools, helping out at food banks and cleaning up poor neighborhoods.

“I don’t think Dr. King wanted us to praise him, but he wanted us to serve others in need,” said Sherman Lofton, principal of Atlanta’s Crim High School, one of the cleanup sites.

In Arizona, which lost millions of tourist dollars after voters twice rejected a state holiday, community leaders dropped the partylike atmosphere of recent King Day observations in favor of more somber marches.

Participation at some commemorative services was reported smaller than normal because of President Clinton’s inaugural. But the Washington ceremony played a part at one King commemoration in Los Angeles.

At a meeting of the Progressive Religious Alliance at Holman United Methodist Church near downtown, about 100 Jews and Christians of several denominations listened intently to Clinton’s inaugural address.

Afterward, the Rev. James Lawson, the pastor at Holman, said, “The speech had no word about justice. Justice was one of King’s keywords.”

Lawson, who knew King and was involved in the civil rights movement, called the president’s speech “empty rhetoric.”

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Edgar, president of the Claremont School of Theology, chided the crowd for failing to fulfill King’s agenda.

If Washington is going to bend in the direction of civil rights, affirmative action and economic justice, Edgar said, it will take a massive effort at the grass roots.

“We did not get civil rights legislation because a bunch of white congressmen thought it was a good idea,” he said.

Associated Press and Times staff writers Angie Chuang and Scott Steepleton contributed to this story.