Ashland MLK Celebration
For the 2021 and 2022 video events, see the Videos page.
2020 Ashland MLK Celebration
Our entire program, starting with the pre-show performance by the Bishop Mayfield band, and a history of Freedom Summer, before the main program, featuring Keynote Speaker Nataki Garrett, OSF Artistic Director.
See more of Dr. King and our shared history on the History page.
The 32nd annual Ashland Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration was held on Monday, January 20th at the Historic Ashland Armory. Overflow attendees watched a simulcast live stream at the Varsity Theatre.
Featured: Brent Florendo, Walker Elementary School students, SOU BSU, Ashland High School Jazz Band, Children for Change, Ashland Danceworks, The Bishop Mayfield Band. MC: D.L. Richardson. Program includes a history of Freedom Summer, In Memoriam, and “We Stand Together.”
The celebration is FREE and open to the public. Non-Perishable Food Donations for ACCESS are encouraged. After the celebration, marched to the Ashland Plaza for the playing of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he [or they] must take it because his [or their] conscience tells him [or them] it is right…” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Ashland MLK Celebration Archive
2019 — “From Then to Now… Empowering the Dream”
“We have inherited a large house … a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.”
2018 — “The fierce urgency of now: tomorrow is today.”
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late…There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.”
2017 — “Power. Justice. Love for All”
“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
2016 — “Let Us Be Dissatisfied and Transform Dark Yesterday’s Into Bright Tomorrow’s.”
“We have a task and let us go out with a ‘divine dissatisfaction.’ Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds…”
2015 — “Share the Dream, Live the Reality”
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”