Baker honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with its sixth annual legacy march and celebration on Jan. 21, starting with a march around several blocks beginning and ending at city hall, accompanied by the high-school band.

“Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Dr. King’s Dream” was the title of Dr. James Kador’s talk. Kador is assistant principal of Baker High School, and was introduced by Chequita Hilliard Young, in the municipal auditorium.

He highlighted King’s life from the Montgomery bus boycott to the Memphis garbage workers’ strike where King was killed in 1968 as “Yesterday.”

“Today” was defined by poverty, health issues and school dropouts. “The time is always right to do what is right,” Kador said, quoting from a speech King made at Oberlin College, Ohio.

“Tomorrow” referred to studying history so as not to repeat mistakes of the past. We must hone in on education and be tired of violence. We must help our children finish high school and continue their education, he said.

The invocation was delivered by Bishop Michael Smith; benediction, by Kedrick Burton. Mayor Harold Rideau welcomed the group and told how education opportunities helped him do better than his parents did, and how it has helped his children do even better.

Billeann Riddle reminisced about Baker as it was in the 1960s when she first arrived, how it’s changed but has remained a wonderful hometown in which to raise children.

A cappella music was provided by Cathy Murdock singing “Abraham, Martin and John” and by Myrtle Burns singing “These Thorns.” Julius Burns, a 1974 Baker High School graduate, delivered closing remarks and everyone held hands and sang “We Shall Overcome.”

The program ended with coffee and doughnuts, juice and milk being served to all.

Chequita Hilliard Young of People Organized for Nonviolent Youth and Peron McCastle of Neighbors United for a Better Baker spearheaded the event.