Praise and Pleas

USC sophomore Ian Chestnut, 20, looked out across the packed auditorium Thursday and asked everyone under 30 to stand up.

“Those of you standing were not around when [civil rights leaders] went through the struggle, through the trials and tribulations,” he said. “I would just like to say thank you for their making it possible for us to be here.”

Chestnut spoke at a campus event called “A Tribute to Rosa Parks,” one of several celebrations Thursday honoring the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Throughout the city, his life was commemorated with speeches, dance and poetry. Wrapped in the celebration was a call to action, a plea to become involved in efforts aimed at curing social ills.

“You can’t do it from a seat in the bleachers,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the keynote speaker at USC. “You have to get up and get busy.”

Parks was unable to attend the tribute, but those who showed up to honor her continued as if she were there.

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“I’m excited because I’ve seen her in every single Martin Luther King book that I read,” said 7-year-old Tuzday Jones, a second-grader who, along with her class from the 32nd Street/USC Performing Arts School, sang a tribute to King.

In the days leading up to the civil rights leader’s birthday, Tuzday’s teacher Jody Krupin taught the class about Parks, the 1955 bus boycott in Birmingham, Ala., that she sparked and the way in which one individual can make a difference.

“I asked her if it wasn’t for Martin Luther King and Rosie Parks, would things be the same?” Tuzday said.

A group of older 32nd Street School students--fifth- through eighth-graders--danced a high-energy tribute to Parks, accompanied by Kirk Franklin’s smash contemporary gospel hit “Stomp.”

“I think people who participated in the civil rights movement should be treated with honor and glory,” said student dancer Christine Jenkins.

King’s birthday was celebrated in Compton with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new 4,000-square-foot literacy center.

“Dr. King knew that without literacy no one can achieve,” said singer Isaac Hayes, spokesman for the World Literacy Crusade, sponsors of the Compton tribute. “After you fight and march for equal rights and for opportunities, if you are not literate, then you cannot seize them.”

Hayes called “all able bodies to arms. We have chapters around the world, but we just need much more. We need more volunteer tutors, corporate sponsorship and support to put more programs into our inner cities. Everybody wins when that happens.”

The crusade’s King birthday activities will include a concert tonight--dubbed “Living the Dream Through Literacy”--at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.

And celebrations at USC will continue Sunday with a concert honoring King in Bovard Auditorium at 4 p.m.

At King/Drew Medical Magnet High School Center on Thursday, the celebration included the unveiling of a sculpture of King--created by Tina Allen--on 3.8 acres that will be the site of a new campus.

A recurring theme at many of the day’s celebrations was that each individual can make a difference. Kay Allen, associate director of the Fisher Gallery and Museum Studies Program, who helped plan the USC event, said she hoped that the King birthday activities would inspire young people to become involved.

USC’s Chestnut seemed to know that young people need to get involved and that individuals do make a difference. Too often younger people take things for granted, he said.

“They opened the door for me to be where I am, and to come to this university and get an education,” he said of earlier generations. By asking those under 30 at the assembly to stand in honor of earlier fighters for civil rights, he said, “I felt that would affirm our thankfulness to them.”