Local Events to Mark King Day

Speeches, concerts, art shows and a march through Oxnard are among events in Ventura County on Monday to celebrate Martin Luther King Day.

Festivities, including prayer and music, begin in Oxnard at 8:15 a.m. with a three-quarter mile walk from Plaza Park to the Oxnard Performing Arts Center at 800 Hobson Way.

Perry J. Ludy, a businessman and motivational speaker, will be the keynote speaker.

Participants in the walk can park their cars at the center and take a shuttle bus to Plaza Park.

“I hope this is the one day that we will all celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday,” said John Hatcher, president of the Ventura County chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, and a participant in the Oxnard events. King’s “message should mean a lot, and the celebration should be about more than just a day off work. He was out there marching and dealing with discrimination in this country.”

King was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn., where he had gone to support sanitation workers striking for better work conditions. He was 39. Jan. 15 was King’s 73rd birthday.

His birthday became the 10th federal holiday in 1986 and the first to be authorized by Congress since Thanksgiving in 1941.

A few blocks from the Performing Arts Center event, the Ventura County Rescue Mission will hold a banquet and salute to King starting at 11:30 a.m.

Events will include a reenactment of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech by the Rev. Calvern Green, a graduate of the mission’s drug and alcohol recovery program and now a minister at South Coast Fellowship in Ventura.

The banquet will feature home-cooked soul food prepared by culinary students at the mission, said Carol Roberg, the mission’s executive director. An original hip-hop song written to celebrate King’s birthday will be performed by a resident in the mission’s drug and alcohol recovery program. The mission is at 234 E. 6th St.

“Many of these people are without hope, and we try to celebrate all the holidays for them,” Roberg said, referring to mission clients. “My goal is to make the African American people feel very special. So many times they are discriminated against, so we want to honor them.”

Ojai will celebrate the civil rights leader’s birthday with a series of concerts, poetry readings and art displays Monday.

Organizers expect more than 300 people to attend events, including discussions on racism and cultural awareness at Chaparral Continuation High School auditorium. At Libbey Park, several bands and musicians will perform from noon to 5 p.m., said Kelly McCormick, an organizer.

Simi Valley Second Missionary Baptist Church will feature a sermon at 10 a.m. by Assemblyman Carl Washington (D-Paramount).