A Hero of a Man, a Stepchild of a Holiday

I asked my second-grade daughter what she’d learned in school about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “That he was a black-skinned man who helped the black-skinned people” was her reply.

My daughter’s only 7, so her grasping no more than that is no surprise. But her innocent statement says much about why Martin Luther King Day, which comes up Monday, remains somewhat the stepchild among our official national holidays.

Many Americans with good hearts and kind spirits think as my daughter, that King’s role in history is derived from what he did for his own race. It’s a hard sell to some that the slain civil rights leader achieved national greatness for what he did for all of us. He’s an American hero who happened to be African American, not the other way around.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” King wrote from a jail cell in Birmingham, Ala., in 1962, one of many times he was jailed for leading civil rights protests.

From those embattled times King raised the consciousness bar for millions of us baby boomers who’d grown up with the idea that racial prejudice was somebody else’s problem. King wasn’t the only great leader from the civil rights movement. But he was the most eloquent, and when someone was needed to march at the front of the line against social injustice, he was always called on first.

It was typical of his life that he was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn., after coming to that city to lead a protest on behalf on striking garbage workers. Yet many of us have never understood the toll of his sacrifice.

Only 11 O.C. Cities See the Light

Congress passed a law in 1983 honoring King’s birth date, Jan. 15, as a national holiday (officially the third Monday in January). The news was met with disdain in some areas. The state of Arizona, for example, refused to observe the holiday until voters made it an official state holiday in 1992.

In Orange County, the city of Santa Ana agreed in 1986 to close offices for that day, after a protest by local African Americans. At that time, only two cities here--Irvine and Huntington Beach--observed the federal holiday. And it stayed just the three into the early 1990s.

Not a whole lot has changed since then. I called all 33 cities in Orange County, and found only 11 cities closed for the King holiday. You wonder what insight new cities like Laguna Woods and Lake Forest have about the meaning behind this date that somehow escapes established cities like Fullerton or Newport Beach.

Those 11 deserve mention: Anaheim, Brea, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Lake Forest, Laguna Woods, Los Alamitos, Placentia, San Clemente, Santa Ana and Seal Beach.

If you’re a city council member or community activist in any of the other cities, it’s not too late to show leadership and make plans for a proper city observance next year. We ought to have a goal of flip-flopping those 22-11 numbers.

I know from living here for two decades that churches in the county with a predominately African American congregation will do something special to highlight King’s contributions in services Sunday. I wish it were true for all predominately white churches too. Many of them will, certainly.

The Rev. Fred Plumer, the minister at the Irvine United Church of Christ, said his church makes a special point of honoring King each year. And not because he was a black leader.

“We celebrate Dr. King’s life because he walked the Christian path,” Plumer said. “Jesus was a radical for social justice, and that’s the life Dr. King chose. He wasn’t afraid to confront the principalities and the powers. He confronted us about our own prejudices.”

At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Laguna Beach, King’s picture will be on the cover of this week’s religious program, along with one of his more memorable quotes: “Love is the only force that can change an enemy into a friend.”

The Rev. Chris Schriner there recalls his members’ being moved during a millennium celebration when they listened to a CD of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1963.

“He stood for racial unity for all of us,” Schriner said. “He was the leader for a nation, not just one race.”

Last year at this time I wrote about the controversy surrounding the naming of a new Riverside high school for King. Some parents protested out of shameful ignorance that the name might reflect negatively on their sons and daughters in college applications. But the majority of opponents were simply good people who wanted a name that more reflected the community.

A year later, it has proved to be a nonissue. Students and faculty are proud of the name. The school has joined the National Kindness & Justice Challenge out of Atlanta, which will send it lesson plans to incorporate social justice issues into the curriculum. This week students in the arts-language classes are analyzing the “I Have a Dream” speech, said the principal, Ray Plutko, to talk about how parts of it apply to their lives.

And on Friday, the school will unveil a huge mural, with King’s signature, and another of his quotes: “Now is the time for open doors of opportunity.”

Private businesses could show more leadership in honoring King too.

I know one company with a major office in Orange County that, like many others, has always made the holiday optional: You could either celebrate with a day off, or you could work that day and have another day off later. The King holiday became a semi-holiday.

But this year, that company’s leaders, for the first time, have given the King birth date holiday the same status as Presidents Day and Memorial Day. It’s an official day off for everybody.

Good for them. Now that’s the kind of company you like to work for.

King’s actual birth date is Saturday. He would have been 71.

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 564-1049 or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com.