Santa Barbara celebrated its 43rd Martin Luther King Jr Day last weekend. The federal holiday was created to honor the life and work of famed civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. At just 35 years old, King became the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize at the time due the extensive amount of social change his nonviolent protests brought to the US. Less than four years later, King was tragically assassinated while he was in Memphis, Tennessee for his Poor People’s Campaign. 

The Martin Luther King Jr. Committee of Santa Barbara (MLKSB) is a local non-profit corporation whose mission is to, “foster positive relationships between the many diverse groups in the Santa Barbara Community and the surrounding areas.”

MLKSB hosted its 18th annual celebration of King on January 20. It was composed of numerous celebratory events, such as an opening prayer by Mia Lopez, leader of the Family of Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, reflections from elected officials Gregg Hart and Laura Capps, and most notably a march up State Street which begun at 10 am and concluded at the Arlington Theatre. Following the march was a 90-minute program with keynote speaker Dr. Lisa Sideris, professor of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Barbara. The Santa Barbara community showed up in the hundreds to showcase their support. 

Santa Barbara High School students require 60 hours of community service to graduate, and the MLKSB organization is an all volunteer organization that could use students’ help. If you are at all interested you can reach out to the coordinator of volunteers Betsy Shelby at [email protected] or visit the MLKSB website online. 

Back at school, two year member of the Black Student Union A’xela Ritchie remarked on the lack of events at Santa Barbara High School for MLK day, “I feel like its typical honestly, I think it’s hard because in this generation its kinda like a double edged sword; if you do do something its like your only doing it for one day in particular, but if you do nothing than it seems like you’re completely ignoring a significant moment in the civil rights movement and in black culture… I feel like something should be done but at the same time I feel like if you get overly enthusiastic about it, it’s like ok what about the other days, what about implementing that culture into education, into daily curriculum, instead of just a month in February.” Nevertheless, MLK is an important day in American history to acknowledge and celebrate. It stands for all the progress we have made, and all the progress left to go. The fight for equality in the United States is an ongoing battle, and King was well aware of this unavoidable fact. Yet he spoke these unforgettable words during his last Sunday sermon back in 1968: “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

[Hundreds march up State Street on Monday Image Credit: Clara Watson]