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Riverside Celebrates
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Published:January 18 , 2007
By Mary Shelton
Black Voice News
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Winds blew. Roads froze. People bundled up in layers of clothing and moved close to each other as they walked in unison down the streets of Riverside.
But the inclement weather did not discourage over 500 people from participating in the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. walkathon to honor the legacy of the civil rights leader on Jan. 15.
Riverside Community College Norco campus president Dr. Brenda Davis addresses the crowd as Ali Sahabi and Mayor Ron Loveridge look on.
Brenda Davis, the president of the Riverside Community College District's Norco campus reminded walkers that King had never let rain, wind or cold stop him from marching for justice and saluted those who participated.
"We can not take our eyes away from the miseries," Davis said, in a speech she gave during a ceremony which followed the walkathon, which is sponsored each year by the African-American Historical Society and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Monument Visionaries, Inc. Davis reminded walkers that it was important to remain committed to King's message.
Barnett Grier’s son-in-law Calvin McShan served as family spokesperson during the MLK event to present the family scholarship.
Carrying banners, and a string of colorful balloons which created a rainbow over them, men, women and children left Bordwell Park in the Eastside where they had gathered earlier that morning for a pancake breakfast and headed two miles towards downtown. They took over a lane of traffic on Martin Luther King Avenue, which had been closed off because during the night a fine sheet of ice had coated the asphalt. Motorists honked their support as the walkers turned down Main St. towards City Hall led by a marching band from the Kansas Avenue Seventh Day Adventist Church.
"There is power in walking," was the adage of the day, as it had been in the civil rights movement which King had led years ago.
A valley college student was the recipient of the Eleanor Jean Grier Scholarship.
Despite the biting Santa Ana winds which whipped through what some participants called a wind tunnel on Ninth Street between the City Hall building and a parking garage, many of the walkers staked out locations in the sunlight and listened to the speeches. Others sat in uprighted metal chairs that had been knocked over by the winds before the walkers arrived.
A homeless man walked up to the statue of King and placed a red rose on it before sitting down in the audience. Others watched as the wind whipped a string of balloons into several pine trees, causing many of the balloons to pop while a young woman sang "God Bless America". The master of ceremonies told the audience that the extra sound effects had been planned and many laughed in response while bracing themselves with their arms against the chill.
After the event, many people talked about another type of chill hitting the city of Riverside, in the form of the recent departure of another Black employee from a position inside City Hall.
(l-r) Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, Jenether Hagen, Mary Shelton and Mildred Tyler.
During his speech, Mayor Loveridge referred to the events surrounding the dedication of the statue of King in 1999. The special ceremony had taken place in the midst of weekly demonstrations in the city's streets protesting the fatal shooting of Tyisha Miller by four former Riverside Police Department officers. King's daughter, Yolanda had been the guest of honor and had spoken at the ceremony. Several weeks earlier, her brother Martin Luther King, III had been arrested during a civil disobedience demonstration that had occurred several blocks away at the police department, an incident his sister noted in her speech.
Loveridge told the walkers this year that Yolanda King had told him that there was no better monument to King in the entire country than the one in Riverside.
"We are really here to talk about unity and justice for all," Loveridge said.
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