54 years after the visit of Martin Luther King, Jr. to Orange County – Orange County Register

It has been 54 years since Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Orange County on March 19, 1968. The only time he visited the county was the annual convention of the California Democratic Assembly held at the Convention Center. Anaheim Conference. While much has changed since then, much remains to be done to realize his vision of a just society in Orange County and beyond.

The King’s visit comes against the backdrop of legislative achievements in favor of civil rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 collectively dismantled segregationist structures that had long upheld white supremacy through subjugate the Negro as a racial class. While critiquing America’s long war in Vietnam as immoral, King’s speech reflected an expansive vision of justice as a human right – one that unites all people in the world into ” an inevitable web of mutuality, bound in a single garment of fate”.

Four weeks later, at the age of 39, King was assassinated in Memphis a day before leading a march for striking sanitation workers.

In many ways, the Orange County of 2022 is unlike the county that King visited. As an example of turning swords into plowshares, Irvine Grand Park was established on land formerly belonging to the Marine Corps’ El Toro Air Force Base. As a major transit point for troops deployed to Vietnam, Congress decommissioned El Toro Base in 1993 and closed it in 1999 after the end of the Cold War.

Orange County’s population has grown to 3 million while reflecting the diversity of the state. A minority district with a majority, 4-year public universities and federally designated 2-year community colleges as Hispanics as well as American Institutions indigenous to the Pacific Island. The city’s calendar follows a wide range of cultural traditions and beliefs. More and more office workers for federal, state, and local governments include first responders for many communities.

Communities and shopping malls have replaced the farmland that once fed the state and the country. From tech to real estate, billionaires and millionaires call the county home. Fortune 500 companies are headquartered here and global brands are associated with the mystique of the Orange Coast.

For all these changes, we are still far from the “inevitable web of mutuality, tied to a single shirt of destiny” that King envisioned. Too many people have been left behind. Hatred is entrenched in some areas.

The size of the unused population has increased due to a lack of affordable housing. They don’t look like indulgent and entitled residents who are featured on scripted cable shows. They include abused women, exploited children, the elderly, single mothers, veterans, working parents, the unemployed and underemployed and undocumented.