#12 1/17/2000
Making the Dream Real
Freedom: From the Top of Africa to the Streets of San Francisco
If the title of this story is "Making the Dream Real," do you think that I
went sky diving after all? :-) Not quite. I took the day off, because Theresa has the
Martin Luther King Day off. We decided to do something new and different. We decided to
ride the BART Freedom Train and participate in the Freedom March in San Francisco.
This is my hiking boots. What's the relationship between these two pictures?
Where was
this at? -- Africa: after climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and
getting to its peak: Uhuru Peak, which means Freedom in
Kiswahili.
Where was this at? -- San Francisco:
after riding the BART Freedom train and marching in the Freedom March Parade.
So on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, it was very appropriate for me to be in the Freedom
March parade while wearing my hiking boots. Freedom: From the Top of Africa to the Streets
of San Francisco!
By the way, I never cleaned my boots after our big trip to Africa, so I brought some
African dirt to the streets of San Francisco. :-)
The morning started with me putting on cologne that
Theresa gave me for Christmas. It was "Escape for Men" from Calvin Klein. It was
somewhat appropriate for the Freedom Train, I would say. Okay, I'm stretching a bit here.
Okay, I'm in danger of getting my "poetic license" suspended :-)
Here was the official "Making the
Dream Real" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commeorative Jan 17, 2000 Flash Pass for
BART.
Ee hopped on the offical BART Fredoom
Train from the Fremont BART station at 10:30 in the morning.
We were disappointed that the train was
not that crowded. I guess a lot more people took the CAL train version of the Freedom
Train.
We
arrived San Francisco by noon. We walked around Yueba Buena to look for the parade. We had
no luck.
We did have luck to find a Starbucks to
get some steaming hot espress drinks to warm ourselves up. Frankly it's not very difficult
to find a Starbucks--as they seemed be everywhere!
Frankly we did not know where and when
to find the parade. It was a lucky coincidence that we happened to saw this small group of
people seemingly lost also. They were carrying a sign that proclamed "BART Freedom
Train Riders." Hey, that's us. We decided to join them and wait for the main parade
at the corner of Fourth and Market Street.
Our patience was finally rewarded at
12:30 as Reverend Cecil Williams of the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church ( http://www.glide.org/ ) led the parade.
Glide's banner proclaimed "Lives
the Dream."
After watching the parade for a while,
the BART group joined in. Theresa and I quickly followed and became part of the parade.
It was a lot of fun honoring Dr King in
this way.
Even though
there was no sunshine; however, everyone was warmed by all the smile on everyone's face.
After marching up
Market Street, we arrived at the City Hall. ( http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/cityhall/
)
We then decided to go into the Bill
Graham Civic Auditorium ( http://www.billgrahamcivic.com/
) for the celebration.
Here is a copy of the program.
We enjoyed all the speakers, especially...
Renel, KISS ( http://www.981kissfm.com/ ) 98.1 FM; S.F. Giants
Public Address Announcer ( http://www.sfgiants.com/
).
SF Mayor Willie Brown.
( http://www.sfgiants.com/ )
Belva Davis. KRON ( www.kron.com ) ; KQED ( http://www.kqed.com/
)
It was also interesting to note that the winner of the WritersCorp who got to read her
first-place poem that honors Dr. King was Penelope Zheng. From her accent, she seems to be
from China. I was impressed by this multi-cultural, multi-racial celebration of Dr. King's
birthday.
We especially enjoyed
Reverend Cecil Williams and the Glides Ensemble. Believe me, they can sign!
After
enjoying the celebration, we were starving. We came out and bought some BBQ sliced beef
with potatoe salad. The BBQ sauce was just heavenly! Theresa was also very happy with her
sweet potatoe pie. She also bought several books by African American writers.
After the celebration, we walked around San Francisco. We visited Metreon. Theresa
bought a new clock radio. We also went into Virgin Records; I bought a Sunset Blvd CD.
We then
walked around and searched for a place for dinner. We finally ended up at Hyatt Regency.
Remember last time I said that I wanted to take Theresa
to Equinox, the revolving restaurant at the top? We did today :-)
We had a nice view of San Francisco with
its bright lights, even though it was drizzling a little bite.
I had a House Specialty: Mango Madness,
and I even got to take home the empty glass to add to my trophy case of all my 39.99th
birthday celebration trinkets. Since we were still full from our late lunch, we had beef
nachos and clam chowder for dinner.
We concluded yet another successful
adventure by waiting for our return BART Freedom Train back to Fremont!
Here are excerpts from an article from www.sfgate.com
In its 15th year, the Caltrain Freedom Train carried thousands of people from San Jose
to San Francisco. BART also offered a similar train ride from Oakland to San Francisco
early yesterday. Train passengers later marched from the Caltrain station in San Francisco
to the Civic Center for a King Day celebration at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
The theme for this year's celebration was ``Making the Dream Real,'' which focused on
bringing King's messages of nonviolence, peace and justice home to future generations.
Speaking to the crowd, Mayor Willie Brown said he was impressed by the number of young
people in the audience. He reminded the crowd that it has been 32 years since King was
assassinated while standing on a balcony at a Memphis motel.
Many of the participants in yesterday's events had not even been born when King was
killed.
``The average age is coming down, and that's a good sign,'' Brown said.
Elbert Reed, chairman of the Martin Luther King Association of Santa Clara Valley, said
he is astounded that young people today know so little about great African Americans.
``So many of them have heard of Babe Ruth but have never heard of Jackie Robinson,'' he
said. ``I think much of it has gotten lost. I hope we make an effort to still work toward
the dream.''
