SANTA CRUZ — Santa Cruz’s annual March for the Dream is the type of event where, instead of onlookers, there are participants.
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.”
Santa Cruz NAACP President Elaine Johnson stressed King’s vision and legacy of people “are equal members of the human family,” regardless of color or creed.
“We ask that you stay in peace and solidarity, recognizing that while we work toward our goals for equality and justice, we will have differences,” Johnson said. “But they should never, and I mean never, serve as a catalyst for violence.”
Local political unrest touches MLK event
Johnson and Lopez-Littleton, as with most of Monday’s speakers, alluded to but did not delve into recent political unrest that has rocked Santa Cruz. Hundreds of community members have flooded recent Santa Cruz City Council and Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisor meetings, demanding the approval of resolutions calling for a cease-fire in the latest Israel-Hamas war. After a 10-hour meeting on the topic last week, the council approved a modified resolution with more generalized language. Among the hundreds of public speakers during last week’s council meeting, Rabbi Paula Marcus was scheduled to deliver Monday’s invocation, as she had in previous years. The NAACP board, however, voted to replace her in the commemoration lineup with UC Santa Cruz professor emeritus David Anthony.
During Monday’s parade, representatives from Temple Beth El marched not far from a group carrying a banner reading “Cease Fire Now. Let Gaza Live,” among dozens of other organization representatives and political candidates.
NAACP Treasurer Amanda Harris Altice explained the last-minute lineup change as a decision to keep the holiday commemoration focused on King and the community’s Black, indigenous and people of color rather than the recent political issue. The board, said Harris Altice, did not want to be perceived as having taken a stand on the war.
“We obviously care very, very much about the issue, it’s not that at all,” Harris Altice said. “But you’re not going to hash that out on stage.”
Marchers drawn for unique reasons
The NAACP Santa Cruz County Branch, originally in collaboration with the Santa Cruz Police Department, held the city’s first March for the Dream in 2018. But it was not until this year’s event that resident Sheryl Norteye decided to attend with her family. Norteye described her experience Monday as beautiful, contrasting how it can otherwise “be very isolating, very, very isolating, as a Black person” living in the Santa Cruz community.
“I felt that, as an African-American woman living in Santa Cruz for almost seven years, it was about time to No. 1, connect to the community, No. 2, stand for what I believe in, civil rights of all people,” Norteye said. “And I thought that MLK Day would be the perfect time to start.”
Norteye added that she enjoyed a fresh opportunity to question local officials on what efforts they have made or will make toward addressing housing supply and homelessness issues, which aligns with her day job in Santa Cruz County government. Importantly, Norteye said, she came to the march with an open heart and no expectations.
“This is not just a physical movement. It’s an emotional, it’s a philosophical one. It’s a movement of the heart,” Norteye said. “And I think so many people are here for the right reasons. For me, standing and observing and connecting makes it all the better.”
U.S. Army veteran Bill Simpson, of Santa Cruz, cited the inspiration for joining Monday’s event as a similar one decades earlier, not long before the United States joined the Vietnam War.
“I was in a parade back in Washington, D.C., when I was in the military and told not to go,” Simpson said of 1963’s March on Washington, where King delivered his now-famous “I Have a Dream” speech. “I’m in this one because I like living here and end up in things like this.”
As with many participants and observers of the day’s march and commemoration, Rabbi Richard Litvak found an aspect of King’s life that spoke to him personally. Asked what drew him Monday, Litvak pointed to the black baseball cap on his head, with white writing reading “Everytown for Gun Safety.”
“Everything he offered was cut short by gun violence,” Litvak said of King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. “His message about nonviolence is about acting personally in a nonviolent way, but also establishing nonviolence in society. One of the reasons he was especially effective was because of the way in which he went about change, the power of nonviolence.”
Walking in the parade, Monterey Bay Central Labor Council President Daniel Dodge Sr. could not resist beginning to lead fellow marchers in a chant because, though he tries “to keep a low profile, it was too quiet for me.”
“I think, while a lot has been paid attention to Martin Luther King’s advocacy for nonviolence, at the time of his death, he was working with unions and labor and realizing the value of organized labor to bring change to this country,” Dodge said. “We’re out here, just trying to bring attention to the power of all of us working together.”
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Downtown filled for annual MLK ‘March for the Dream’ - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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