A Call for Action on King Day

On a day for taking stock of race relations in America, Kathryn McCullough measured progress by the length of time it takes her to count the number of black elected city officials in Orange County.

It is a short list, beginning and ending with her. It has been that way since McCullough was first elected to the Lake Forest City Council in 1994.

As the nation remembered slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, McCullough said she probably will run for council again this year in hopes that someday another black politician will follow her path in a county where about 2% of the population is African American.

“We have been incorporated over 100 years--and we have one black elected official?” the 55-year-old councilwoman said. “We’ve got 31 cities here. Give me a break. There is something seriously wrong.”

McCullough was one of hundreds of people who turned out Sunday and Monday to mark King’s birthday here at Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church. Many others throughout Southern California heard sermons on King in churches, paraded in the streets or attended commemorative events at schools, including one Monday at Valley High School in Santa Ana.

King fought racial discrimination through nonviolent protest and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Assassinated in 1968, he would have been 69 this year. His actual birthday was Jan. 15, 1929. Legislation creating a federal holiday honoring King was signed into law by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

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This year was the fifth in a row South County leaders organized a King commemoration.

On Sunday, there was music from the Focus Gospel Group and Crossroads Choir. On Monday, scores turned out for a showing of the 1996 film “Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored,” about poverty and discrimination in a small Southern town, followed by group discussions on race relations connected to the recently launched effort called the “National Days of Dialogue.”

There were whites, blacks and Latinos in the audience. There were youths wearing T-shirts with slogans such as “Color Me Human” and “One Planet, One People . . . Please.”

A somewhat larger turnout was also expected Monday evening at the church to hear a speech by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

Those who came here Monday said they were seeking to nourish King’s vision of equality in America. Many said they were conscious of the prevalence of racial hatred in Orange County. In 1996, 183 hate crimes were reported countywide, a four-year high.

Vivi Trujillo, 43, a kindergarten teacher in Garden Grove who is of Spanish, Mexican and Indian descent, said that the message of the holiday should be multiethnic.

“I can identify with the struggles of people of color,” Trujillo said, “because I am a person of color. I’ve found that the white population does not take into consideration that it is more than a black and white issue. What was going on in the South and the ‘50s and ‘60s was also going on in the barrios.