March, Memory, and Meaning: UCSB Launches MLK Day Weekend with Historic Campus Tribute

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) - UC Santa Barbara kiced off its Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend on Jan. 15 with a campus gathering honoring the civil rights leader’s legacy — rooted in history, reflection, and action.

The event began noon at the Eternal Flame, on the lawn between Buchanan Hall and the library.

Opening remarks were delivered by Nebiyu Alemnew of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the historically Black fraternity to which Dr. King belonged while studying at Boston University.

Following the remarks, participants marched to North Hall, a site deeply tied to UCSB’s civil rights history. UCSB alum John Higgins and Gregory Freeland, president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Committee of Santa Barbara, addressed the crowd during the march.

North Hall was the focal point of a pivotal 1968 civil rights protest that led to the hiring of more African American faculty members and the creation of the first Black Studies Program in the University of California system.

The event concluded with closing remarks from Ewomazino Asidi, president of Alpha Phi Alpha’s UCSB chapter and the university’s Black Student Union.

“It is not enough to simply recite Dr. King’s words or commemorate his work,” said Wendy Eley Jackson, a UCSB film and media studies lecturer and board member of MLKSB. “We must actively steward his values with clarity, resolve and humanity. A deeper, more familial understanding of his life and sacrifice reminds us why his vision remains essential — not just to history, but to the moral fabric of our world today.”

The gathering marks the start of several MLK Day events taking place throughout the holiday weekend.

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