San Diego honors the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during 42nd annual parade

Hundreds of people marched down Harbor Drive in downtown San Diego on Sunday morning to honor the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The 42nd annual parade commemorated what would have been King’s 95th birthday with parade floats and performances by majorettes, marching bands, cheerleaders, and fraternity and sorority members. The event was organized by the Zeta Sigma Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, the oldest intercollegiate fraternity for Black men.

The day started off with a 5K run before the parade and ended with a health fair in Ruocco Park at Seaport Village. The event’s theme was “A Healthy Community Thrives Together.”

“We wanted to emphasize the importance of physical and mental well-being within the community while honoring King’s principles of unity, equality and social justice,” said Dr. Robert Walker, the alumni chapter’s president.

Band members of Gadsden Elementary School District perform in parade

Groups marching in the parade competed for awards. The first-place trophies were awarded to the San Diego State University Black Resource Center for most outstanding educational unit, Heartbeat Music & Performing Arts Academy for most outstanding band, UC San Diego for most outstanding float, the Diamond Dolls Dance Team for most outstanding drill team and Gadsden Elementary School District from San Luis, Ariz. for most outstanding marching unit.

Honored posthumously as this year’s parade grand marshal was William “Tayari” Howard, a longtime announcer for the parade and local radio personality who died in October. His widow, Pamela Howard, rode in the grand marshal car in his place.

Walker said the parade dates back to 1980, when educator Francine Foster Williams created a march for equality with her class at Knox Elementary School, a campus in southeastern San Diego that closed in 2011.

After observing that march, Alpha Phi Alpha member David Geiger organized a group to put on a citywide parade the following year. Then in 1986, the same year Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a federal holiday, Zeta Sigma Lambda started organizing the annual parade.

Dancers of Pink Polish Dance Studio dance in a parade

The event honors King, who was a member of Alpha Pi Alpha fraternity and a civil rights movement leader, activist and Baptist minister who was assassinated in 1968 following years of work to advance the rights of people of color. Decades after his death, King’s message of ending racial, social and economic injustice through nonviolent demonstrations and protests still resonates.

“When I look and I see our community coming out and being here together, it just reminds me that we are living the dream, and that we still have work to do to make that dream as beautiful as he had envisioned,” said Ashanti Hands, president of San Diego Mesa College.

As a young, Black woman, the holiday represents perseverance for Destini Perkins, an Oceanside resident who won the 2022-2023 title for Miss Black Global, part of an international pageant organization.

“It reminds us of a lot of historical events that went on and how far we’ve come, but also how far we have to go,” the MiraCosta College student said.

Among the groups participating in this year’s parade was the House of Ukraine — one of the international cottages in Balboa Park — with members calling for American support to end the war with Russia. There also was a group of Palestinian supporters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Hillcrest resident Bryce Tomecek said raising awareness of how Ukrainians are being impacted by the war with Russia is crucial to eventually ending the conflict there. He recalled King’s words, written in 1963 in a letter from the Birmingham jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“It’s the moral duty of the world to care, and to do something when you see injustice in the world and to do things to try to stop it,” Tomecek said.

(Kristian Carreon/For The San Diego Union-Tribune)