Families and San Marcos officials gathered under gray skies Monday morning at the Hays County Courthouse to celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
San Marcos Mayor Daniel Guerrero proclaimed Jan. 16 as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The proclamation will be signed during Tuesday's session of the Hays County Commissioners Court.
Guerrero said King inspired profound and lasting change in the nation. He said the civil rights leader changed the way Americans chose to treat each other.
Terence Parker, Texas State University retention management and planning assistant director, said King had a significant affect not just on African-American history, but on American history as a whole.
"We have come a long way, yet we still have work to do," Parker said. "Let us keep [King's] dream alive by serving others who are less fortunate than we are."
The San Marcos MLK Commemoration and Celebration concluded with a march to the Dunbar Recreational Center, led by the Dunbar Heritage Association.
Parker ended his speech Monday with a quote from King: "If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive."
San Marcos civil rights connections
During the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, King worked with President Lyndon Baines Johnson. This historical connection will be honored and commemorated through the city's Crossroads Project.
The Crossroads Project will fund the creation of a memorial statue at the intersection of South LBJ Drive and MLK Drive in San Marcos.
Artists from across the nation applied to create the memorial. Finalists coLab Studio of Tempe, Ariz.; Aaron Hussey of Baton Rouge, La.; and the team of O'Connell-Hancock of Tucson, Ariz., were chosen from 54 proposals by a special arts committee.
Diann McCabe, Texas State University Honors College senior lecturer, said the idea for the Johnson and King memorial began more than 15 years ago at the San Marcos MLK Commemoration and Celebration. She said fundraising began in 2008.
The City of San Marcos and the Crossroads Committee have raised $106,000 for the memorial. The public is invited to meet the project finalists, view the proposed designs and offer input from 5–8 p.m. Feb. 16 at the San Marcos Activity Center.
"The Crossroads Project will be a lasting monument to the significant contributions [of Johnson and King] to the progress of civil rights in the United States," McCabe said.
Johnson graduated from Southwest Texas State Normal College in 1930. His college years are commemorated in the San Marcos LBJ Museum on North Guadalupe Street.
King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta. He was influenced by Morehouse College President Benjamin E. Mays to become a minister.
In 1957, after the much-publicized Montgomery Bus Boycotts, King and other Southern black ministers created the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. As SCLC's president, King emphasized the importance of voting and worked to change voting laws.
On April 4, 1968, while assisting a Memphis, Tenn., garbage workers' strike, King was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
