Jan 18, 2009 8:06 am US/Pacific
SoCal To Honor MLK Jr. Through Music, Volunteerism
LOS ANGELES
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Musical tributes to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will be held Sunday in West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Rancho Palos Verdes on the eve of the national holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader. (File)
CBS13
Several groups in Los Angeles have chosen to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. through song and volunteerism.
Musical tributes to the slain civil rights leader will be held Sunday in West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Rancho Palos Verdes on the eve of the national Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
"Spirit of the Dream" at the House of Blues in West Hollywood will feature performances by the Clara Ward Singers, Ray Sidney and the Firm Soundation.
The third annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Concert will be held at SGI-USA Auditorium in Santa Monica, with the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra performing Brahms' "Piano Concerto No. 2" and Hailstork's "Symphony No. 1."
The LA Inner City Mass Choir will celebrate the King Holiday with a concert at the Peninsula Community Church in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Additionally, service opportunities will be held throughout the Southland in connection with the increased effort to make the holiday a time to reach out to citizens in need.
A winter clothing drive will be held at Wilshire Boulevard Temple, 3663 Wilshire Blvd., and is in need of new or used coats, sweaters, sweatshirts and fleeces, sweatpants, hat scarves, gloves and blankets.
Food donations will be collected at the Museum of Tolerance, Whole Foods Markets in Mar Vista, Sherman Oaks and Venice, the Trader Joe's Market in Studio City and the Pavilions market in Westminster.
Clean-ups are planned along the walk way adjoining the Orange Line bus line in the San Fernando Valley, in Malibu Creek State Park in Calabasas and Baldwin Hills.
Details on all those projects and more are available at www.usaservice.org.
The Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency charged by Congress in 1994 with transforming the King Holiday into a national day of service, has been working with the Presidential Inaugural Committee for the past month in the effort to have more Americans engage in volunteer efforts on the holiday and the days preceding it.
"At this moment of great purpose and great promise, President-elect Obama is calling on all Americans to make an ongoing commitment to serve their communities and their country," former Secretary of State Colin Powell said earlier this month in announcing Obama's Renew America Together initiative.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first celebrated as a federal holiday in 1986 under a law signed by then-President Ronald Reagan. King and George Washington are the only Americans with federal holidays celebrating their birth.
King's activism in marches and speeches, most famously the "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963, helped foster the passage of civil rights laws and end segregation.
In 1964, at the age of 35, King became the youngest person up to that time to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., at the age of 39.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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