Many taking the stage Monday in Hutchinson events marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day were far too young to have known the man or his time.

Probably, their parents weren’t born before King was assassinated 50 years ago this April 4.

Hutchinson High School junior Damarcus Myer, 16, spoke at last year’s King events. This year, he delivered a dramatic reading of two paragraphs from the letter a jailed King wrote in Birmingham, Alabama. He gave the reading Sunday at Hutchinson Community College’s Stringer Fine Arts Center, and repeated it Monday at Second Missionary Baptist Church, across from the college at 1008 North Ford.

More than 80 Buhler High School and HCC students, combined, sang at the Monday ceremonies, their religious songs a reminder that King was a Baptist minister.

The long-held tradition of Sunday ceremonies at Stringer Fine Arts Center and Monday ceremonies at Second Missionary Baptist added a third leg last year when the Cosmosphere, 1100 North Plum, hosted a reception immediately following the church events Monday. That continued Monday. Besides dance and music, the Cosmosphere presented a display highlighting African-American astronauts who were in the U.S. space program.

About a dozen girls in the community group God’s Anointed New Generation (GANG) performed interpretative dances and sang at the Cosmosphere. Myer, participating in all three King holiday events, played the keyboard for the GANG.

As he prepared for this year's King celebrations, Myer said, he was struck by "the amount of patience that he had."

“Day on, not a day off”

Not too many years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday became a federal holiday in 1983, HCC and the Hutchinson NAACP collaborated on the two-day local celebration.

State Sen. Ed Berger, R-Hutchinson, former HCC president, observed that the Sunday events on the HCC campus have the religious theme, and the church-held events on Monday feature political speakers. Rep. Jason Probst, D-Hutchinson, and Reno County Commissioner Dan Deming were among the speakers.

Reno County Commission Chairman Ron Hirst referred to the saying that this holiday is intended to be a “day on, not a day off.” Speakers encouraged those who filled the pews to become involved, attend civic meetings, run for office.

“What has happened since the last time that I was here?” State Rep. Steven Becker, R-Buhler, asked Monday.

In the summer of 2017, the nation saw racial discrimination “in just raw form," he said, when white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“We could recognize how primal this conflict is,” Becker said. There were not many sides to the conflict. There were two, he said.

Team H – for hate – pledged allegiance to a foreign country’s battle flag – the confederate flag. They worship statues of their military heroes of that foreign country, Becker said, and desperately try to preserve 400 years of racial supremacy, he said.

Team L - for love – continued a 400-year struggle for racial equality on American soil, Becker continued. This team is clothed with the teachings of a non-violent revolution preached by a man of the cloth who had been to the mountaintop and had a dream, Becker said, referring to King.

“Who’s going to prevail?” Becker asked.

From the audience came one word, “Love.”