Southern California churches and performers celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. through the arts

From full symphony concerts, to musical prayers and hymns — these are a few of the many sounds heard across Southern California in honor of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Local creatives, churches and groups are celebrating King through the arts, hoping to continue his legacy of fighting for civil rights and equality. This year, the MLK National Day of Service is celebrated on Monday, Jan. 15 — the same day the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize recipient would have been 95 years old.

The Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra played its annual MLK Holiday Concert on Saturday, Jan. 13, a musical collaboration with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Westside Coalition, in downtown Santa Monica. The free series was first started in 2007 by Nat Trives, then-president of the symphony and a former mayor of Santa Monica.

Before the concert, symphony leaders said the performance honoring a civil rights icon is “very important” to continue each year, because it “promotes equality within the community.”

“It promotes equality and justice, community engagement, and inspiration and reflection in our community,” said Renée Cunning, executive director of the symphony.

This year’s concert highlighted Black artists, soloists, dancers and composers — like Grammy-winner John Clayton, whose ensemble piece “Home” made its West Coast premiere at Saturday’s concert. The performance also featured original music from the late George Walker, the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer Prize in music, in 1996.

As a special way of honoring King, a performance set to Walker’s “Lyrics for Strings” featured two dancers acting as King and his wife, Coretta Scott King.

Broadway actor Mary Bond Davis performed an acapella cover of James Weldon and John Rosamond Johnson’s “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” a hymn that concertmaster and violinist Daniel Persitz said was “somewhat of an anthem of King’s.” The song was frequently used as a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement, and was even known as the Black National Anthem, according to the NAACP.

Persitz said that this year’s symphony concert felt “so unique” because of the number of soloists and new dancers.

The Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. in August 1963 is where King delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. Later that year, he was named Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.”

King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. He was known as one of the most influential leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, who died fighting to end segregation; promote civil rights and equality for people of color.

Across the region, churches and community groups organized poignant, artistic ways to honor King’s legacy and leadership.

Crenshaw United Methodist Church in South L.A. is hosting an MLK Day “sing-in,” honoring songs of the Civil Rights Movement, on Monday afternoon. The free musical event allows singers to “raise your voice as an act of service.”

“I wanted to create a community service project in honor of MLK Day,” said organizer and L.A. resident Arnaé Batson. “For me, it always starts and ends with music, so I reached out to the pastor at Crenshaw United. He’s a great supporter of music.”

Batson, 63, is the founder of the SSING Network, which stands for Sharing Songs Inspiring Neighborhood Gatherings. Part of her work involves helping people “restore that joy in singing” and promoting singing “as-is,” no matter their capabilities. Batson said she put together the community sing-in to honor King’s legacy of non-violent “sit-in” protest tactics, to “further the message of justice, equality and upliftment.”

Freedom hymns were sung during various civil rights rallies and marches in the 1960s, including the famous Selma to Montgomery march, according to historians. Batson said the event will highlight songs often heard at King rallies, such as “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round,” “I’m On My Way To Freedom Land” and “Calypso Freedom;” a remix of “Banana Boat (Day-O)” by Harry Belafonte Calypso.

Batson said that having the sing-in event on what would have been King’s 95th birthday makes the celebration “even more special.”

“Black and white people couldn’t sit together during his time,” Batson said. “So here we are, not just sitting but singing. When you sing together, your hearts link up together, the good feelings link up.”

Batson said that at all the events she attends and hosts, she strives to provide educational references and engage community members, and this event is no different. At Monday’s free community sing-in, which organizers are calling an afternoon of “soul-stirring songs and social activism,” voter registration information and ballot initiative materials will be provided to participants.

Batson said the modern Black Lives Matter movement — which denounces systemic racism and promotes equality, in the wake of the 2020 death of George Floyd — is one reason to keep singing.

“When the protest marches were happening during the pandemic, people were masked up for safety reasons and so no one was singing,” she said. “We’re not singing so much anymore. I wanted to bring the spirit of that back and honor Dr. King.”

Batson hopes to make this church-focused community opportunity annual. She noted that in the 1950s and 60s, Civil Rights Movement organizing involved mobilizing in churches.

“Churches were safe places for Black people to be,” she said. “You could come in, you could sit in the pews, you could sing, decide where to meet, what marching route to take, (make) plans to help people with voter registration,” she said.

On Monday, other local events to honor King include prayer services, community breakfasts and youth activities — like the MLK Day art and history camp, hosted at the Village Second Baptist Church in Redlands’ historic African American district, on Stuart Avenue and Ninth Street.

The church’s ninth annual MLK Day Celebration features a kids’ history camp with crafts, interactive activities and a scholarship workshop for seniors, organizers said. There will also be an art and speech competition, performances from local Black Student Union members, a resource fair, live music and more.

“The goal of the event is just to bring awareness to the legacy of Dr. King in the city of Redlands,” said chairperson Alise Clouser.

On Monday morning, Orange County pastor Lamont Hartman helped to host the 7th annual MLK prayer breakfast at the Newsong Church in Santa Ana. The event included prayer, uplifting music and conversation, organizers said, and is a regular collaboration of OC-area churches and pastors.

Hartman wanted to organize the prayer breakfast to start building a faith-filled community he felt was “missing” in Orange County.

“When I moved to Orange County, I recognized that there wasn’t really anything happening around MLK,” Hartman, 44, said. “I think it’s important. Less than 1% of residents in Orange County are African American. It’s kind of easy to forget the dream of equality, the dream of justice in Orange County.”

He said that most people treat the holiday only as a “day off from work or school,” instead of taking time to honor Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement; to learn more about it.

“It’s important to keep celebrating MLK and his legacy, because his dream of equality is yet to be realized,” he said. “His non-violent movement was a righteous cause for justice, a movement we should all be inspired by.”

Hartman emphasized the importance of creating space for new, equal leadership, and to keep “admiring the life of someone who really impacted our world, and who continues to impact our world.”

Staff writer Madison Hart contributed to this report.