King Memorials Keep Leader’s Dreams Alive

Los Angeles church leader James M. Lawson doesn’t want the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to be remembered as a dreamer. Nor does he want him to be remembered solely as a civil rights leader. Or even a black leader. He wants King to serve as a reminder for all people to speak out against injustice and to encourage “radical social change.”

That was the message that Lawson, who met King in 1958 and was a close advisor, delivered Wednesday at Holman United Methodist Church, the West Adams church where he is pastor emeritus. The speech was part of the 18th annual prayer breakfast in King’s honor sponsored by the Los Angeles chapters of the National Conference for Community and Justice and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

A diverse crowd of about 200 attended the event, which also included musical performances and readings about interracial and interfaith cooperation.

“The idea is to keep pressing forward, not just memorialize,” Rabbi Susan Laemmle, dean of religious life at USC, said at the church. ‘The best way to memorialize is to make things better.”

Similar messages will echo throughout the Southland over the next few days as religious and community organizations prepare to honor the slain civil rights leader in prayer services, symposiums and tributes leading up to the national observance Monday of King’s birthday.

In Hawthorne on Wednesday, about 40 doctors, security guards, nurses and other staff spooned soul food from trays at Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center. A pianist and a singer performed “Amazing Grace.”

Then a boombox played an excerpt of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech. James V. Lyles, the hospital’s Protestant chaplain, who marched with King, shook his head to its rolling cadences, then began to recite. He knew almost every word.

“In Tennessee, Georgia, when you marched for civil rights, you marched against the police,” he later said. “They had dogs, pistols, rifles, fire hoses. You were always in danger.”

Evangeline Lane, the singer who works in the hospital’s business department, recalled that she met King briefly when she was growing up in South-Central Los Angeles and has thought of him ever since.

“I always wondered what he might think of society today,” she said. “How far we’ve come as a people, whether we’ve been complacent. Or whether we’re at a plateau, and it will take the youth behind us to move us forward.”

King, who preached nonviolence and urged unity among all races, was assassinated on April 4, 1968, by a single rifle shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. He was in Memphis, Tenn., to support a strike by sanitation workers.

Interfaith celebrations of King’s legacy seem to be a popular choice. Among them, the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council is holding its 12th Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Commemoration at 7 p.m. Monday at Cal State Northridge.

Some communities will be using the King holiday to provide youths a sense of history. Lloyd Wilkey, a youth organizer for Holy Faith Episcopal Church in Inglewood will be talking about King this weekend. Once they hear about King’s beliefs, he said, even previously indifferent young people “get inspired by that.”

At Fairgrove Academy in La Puente today students will act out pivotal moments in the civil rights movement, such as Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat, which set off the Montgomery bus boycotts. Educators said it is a good way for young people to grasp such concepts as equality and freedom.

Among other King events:

On Friday, annual discussions to promote racial harmony, sponsored by Phillips Graduate Institute/California Family Counseling Center, are scheduled for 7 to 9:45 a.m. at the institute’s offices, 5445 Balboa Boulevard, Encino.

In Orange County, Christ Our Redeemer African Methodist Episcopal Church in Irvine will feature choir music and dance at an 11 a.m. service Sunday.

Lancaster’s Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Celebration will feature Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) as the keynote speaker and a performance by Voices of the Millennium, a group composed of local church members. It will start at 4 p.m. Sunday at Lancaster Performing Arts Center, 750 W. Lancaster Blvd.

Times staff writer Ann L. Kim contributed to this story.