The signature song of the civil rights movement was among the highlights Monday of the 38th annual celebration of Doctor Martin Luther King Junior at the Nevada Theatre in Nevada City. The event began four years before the federal holiday was first observed, exactly 34 years ago, on this (that) date. What’s now known as the MLK Mass Choir was on stage, which combines the Bethel AME Choir of Marysville and the local Trinity Community Choir. In remarks called “Reflections of a Rebel Prophet”, Pastor Gilbert Richards the-second says King accepted a cause to reduce racism and poverty that he didn’t have to choose, especially in light of the ongoing danger…

Among those in attendance was Avery of Nevada City. She says she ran away to join the movement in the south around the time King was assassinated, in April of 1968…

King’s birthday was actually January 15th, when he would have been 91 this year.