KCET’s Zavala Toplines MLK Program in Santa Monica

Val Zavala, hard-working PBS star of Life and Times and SoCal Connected fame, headlined a fun, uplifting celebration of the life of slain Civil Rights leader at the 26th annual 2011 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day program.

Held at SGI-USA World Culture Center Auditorium on Monday in neighboring Santa Monica, the event was co-sponsored by the City of Santa Monica, Santa Monica College Associates and Soka Gakkai International-USA (SGI-USA).

SGI-USA, the American Buddhist association based on the teachings of the Nichiren school of Mahayana Buddhism. The SGI-USA also hosted the Involvement Day fair across the street following the program, where 30 local nonprofits manned information booths. About 200 to 300 people attended both events.

As the MLK Day program began, Christie Woo-Thibodeaux, SGI-USA member and one of the program’s 33 planning committee members, said she got involved three years ago after being active in the Obama campaign. 

“We want to remind people [of King’s legacy] and to keep them involved and let them know that the peace movement is still the best way,” she said of the event as SGI-USA Taiko drummers pummeled beats out of their percussion instruments inside the auditorium.

After the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Choir chanted, “Go tell it to the mountain. Let my people go,” under the direction of pianist Terry Young, host Nathaniel Trives requested “one moment of silence for our friends in Tucson.”

“One of the great things about Santa Monica is that you’re going to find that every person in this room is a community leader,” Trives said, pointing out such luminaries as Congresswoman Julia Brownley and a swath of Santa Monica leadership and law enforcement, including Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom and City Manager Rod Gould. Former Santa Monica police chief and City of Inglewood Mayor elect James T. Butts was in attendance.

Baritone crooner KB Solomon performed “The House I Live In,” and LaVerne Ross, chair of the scholarship committee, noted that this year marked the 50th anniversary of desegregation.

“Ruby Bridges is a symbol of integration,” Ross said.

Former senior vice president of the Foundation and Education department at KCET David Crippens introduced his ersatz colleague, the event’s keynote speaker. TV personality Zavala, vice president of News and Affairs at KCET Los Angeles and an award-winning anchor of local PBS shows, gave an eloquent speech that patched into the topic of the moment: Tuscon, “the events of the past nine days.”

She asked some hard rhetorical questions that may not have clear answers: “Are we Americans innately violent? Do we prefer the rights of gun owners over the rights of a nine-year-old girl? Why are we concerned over whether or not the gunman’s politics were Right or Left?”

Admitting to succumb to the “conveyor belt” of her daily routine, she said she had to “urge to resist that return to normalcy.”

From onstage, participants led the audience in renditions of Steve Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” and, of course, the iconic Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.”

Musical instructor Leslie Steinberg of Alternative Intervention Models spoke about the importance of children finding their voice. She reflected about one very special student she used to mentor. He went on to become “one of the biggest artists on the planet.” His name was Tupac.

“He was a young man who was so brilliant that he did not have to die,” Steinberg said of Tupac Shakur.

“We lost a young man at SaMoHi on Friday,” Steinberg continued. “Matthew [Mezza, 14, who jumped off the 10th floor of a Sheraton Hotel] took his own life because he in so much pain.”

Early on, Darlene Evans promised an event that will “feed your heart and your soul and your stomachs.” She wasn’t kidding. Indeed, at the subsequent Involvement Fair awaited macaroni and cheese, meatballs, chicken skewers and cupcakes, courtesy of The Flavor Table, a New Orleans-style restaurant in Leimert Park. Coffee and lemonade was also served.

Back at the presentation, Zavala had described King as “a man who did not shrink from soul-searching.” She said that these dark times require Americans “to reach into the rich mud of our souls for answers…to address the dark side of our character.”

One of King’s tenets was the capacity to forgive one’s enemies.

“This is perhaps the most difficult of all mandates that Dr. King has suggested,” Zavala said.

Bringing it back to home to Arizona and Gabrielle Giffords, she added, “I will be interested to see how she views her assailant…If Martin Luther King had been able to meet James Earl Ray…do you think he would be able to say anything other than ‘I forgive you’?”

Another unanswerable question on this day of reflection.