Tri-State honors legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. with celebration, marches, day of service
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is being celebrated across the Tri-State on Monday with ceremonies, rallies and a day of service to honor his legacy.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani were among the officials that attended a celebration at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Now in its 40th year, the celebration brings together a diverse crowd in terms of backgrounds and ages -- but they have one thing in common: organizers say it's a chance for Brooklyn to listen, learn and recommit itself to justice.
This year's tribute has a certain urgency to it and many say it's because of what is going on across the country right now.
Hochul was joined by Attorney General Letitia James and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and other politicians to take the stage.
Several topics were consistently mentioned throughout the various speeches, including immigration, ICE and President Trump, with many vowing to stop the current administration in its path.
"You can come for me but you have to go through Brooklyn," James said. "They want to assert power over New York, they've got to respect us as a sovereign state."
If he was still alive today, Dr. King would have been 97 years old and as Sen. Charles Schumer put it many years ago, the civil rights leader lifted a giant mirror on his shoulders forcing many Americans to look in it and many didn't like what they saw.
Several at the event on Monday felt they are in the same place.
"We see that in fact Black New Yorkers have not known of that solidarity with their yearnings as Dr. King spoke of, and it is the city that has suffered the consequences," Mamdani said. "So as we re-dedicate ourselves to that long and bitter struggle, we cannot turn away from those facts of the years that came before us, we cannot turn away from the facts of the day that has brought us here together today."
In a city where the mayor reminded the crowd Dr. King organized, preached and recovered after a failed assassination in 1958, the program was intentionally filled with artistry -- part of the fabric of Dr. King's entire being.
Also on Monday, hundreds of people marched for justice across the Brooklyn Bridge.
And in Newark, hundreds marched through the streets to honor King and to express their outrage over attempts by the Trump administration they say to erase some of the progress made by the civil rights movement.
Martin Luther King III, the son of the civil rights leader, and his wife Arndrea, are urging everyone to play a role in keeping his father's legacy alive by working to improve their communities.
While the federal holiday is a day off work for many, it is also observed as a national day of service and people are urged to volunteer and help causes and nonprofits that give back to neighborhoods and people in need.
In Harlem, Black Lives Matters of Greater New York provided 200 hot meals and fresh produce outside the MLK Towers. The organizers said their goal is to provide both immediate relief and long-term health resources to the community.
Federal, state and local government officers are closed and the same goes for post offices, banks and public schools.
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