Local leaders reflect on MLK’s enduring heritage in the Bay Area

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Storms gave way to clear skies over San Francisco just in time for the city to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day and honor the civil rights leader who inspired the holiday.

Mayor London Breed, who made history as the first black woman elected to the city’s highest office, issued a statement on Monday about how King paved the way for African-American leaders like herself.

“When I think about Dr. King and his words, “true peace is not just the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice: “I know that there are still so many barriers to equality, equity and justice that we must continue to break down.” Breed wrote. “Our city and country have experienced adversity that has forced us to speak and act. But out of these challenges comes an opportunity for change.”

Supervisor Shamann Walton echoed the sentiment in an Instagram post saying that MLK’s fight for equal rights continues even after decades.

“I must say that we have come a long way, but we still have a lot to do,” the message says. “If we still have visions of black women being hosed down our streets in 2023, right here in San Francisco, then we know we still have a lot to do. Make no mistake, I am proud and happy to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy on his birthday. We will continue to focus on love, not hate. Peace over violence. And unity instead of separation.

State Senator Scott Wiener took the opportunity to call for a number of values ​​that he said King stood for, such as “racial justice, protecting our planet’s environment, expanding access to housing (and) lifting people out of poverty.”

“Doctor. The king’s dream remains a dream in many ways. Let’s work to make it a reality.” he tweeted.

Kamala Harris, first black woman to serve as Vice President of the United States released a video it called King a “prophet” who “saw the future for what it could be”.

“Doctor. King saw a connection between racial injustice and economic injustice, and he knew that in order to effectively address any of these injustices, our nation would need to address both issues,” she said.

In the course of his travels around the country, fighting for civil rights from the 1950s until the following decade, King made a number of notable speeches and speeches in the Bay Area, including at the 1956 NAACP convention in San Francisco.

King also appeared in 1965 at the historic Grace Cathedral shortly after the meetinghouse was completed and dedicated. He spoke to a crowd of 5,000 three days after leading his third march from Selma to Montgomery to protest racial segregation.

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“We will never achieve the American dream until we can remove this terrible cancer from the body of politics,” King said in his speech. “This, in the end, is the whole struggle. This is not just a lot of noise and an unnecessary march, it is, in fact, a struggle to establish the realm of justice.

King’s last major public appearance in the Bay Area was in May 1967 in front of a crowd of thousands at Sproul Square at UC Berkeley, the center of the civil rights movement, which he says helped galvanize the broader racial justice movement.

In that speech, he called for a “revolution of values”, criticized the Vietnam War, and cited economic equality and the redistribution of wealth as key to the broader fight for racial justice.

A few months before his assassination and the day before his birthday, King visited the old Santa Rita Jail in Pleasanton to meet with anti-draft demonstrators, including folk singer Joan Baez and her mother, Ira Sandperl.

“You know, when you go to jail for a good cause, you can accept the inconvenience of prison with some sort of inner sense of calm and inner peace,” King said in a speech outside the facility. His original “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is considered an inspiration to a generation of civil rights activists.

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