Downtown filled for annual MLK ‘March for the Dream’
SANTA CRUZ — Santa Cruz’s annual March for the Dream is the type of event where, instead of onlookers, there are participants.
UC Santa Cruz Professor Emeritus of African History David H. Anthony III offers a moment of reflection and intention during Monday’s MLK program. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
More than 700 community members marched Monday down Pacific Avenue and back to the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in a tribute to the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., commemorated as both a holiday and national day of service. Some 30 different groups, organized by 30 volunteers, waved banners, chanted, chatted with friends new and old and led sing-alongs on a mild and sunny January morning. Later, during a commemorative program, at least 200 people filed into the Civic to hear from those such as state Sen. John Laird and keynote speaker First Vice President of NAACP Monterey County Vanessa Lopez-Littleton.
“This speech today is not about the pain and the suffering,” Lopez-Littleton said. “This is about progress and this is about the future.”