The community spirit was infectious Monday afternoon at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in New Iberia as more than 100 people joined together to celebrate King’s legacy in song, prayer, word and dance.

“I didn’t come here to be cute,” said the Rev. Sydney Mitchell, the pastor of New Iberia’s Church of the Nazarene and the featured speaker for the celebration of King’s life. “That’s why I don’t get invited a lot of places. I can’t be cute when gun violence is where it is. I can’t be cute when social injustice is where it is.”

Mitchell used his speech to call for peaceful activism.

“Dr. King was willing to serve, but he was also willing to die,” Mitchell said. “We still make sacrifices today. It’s not a black and white thing, but a fight for social equality. It’s a fight against evil at the highest level.”

Members of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church Children’s Choir sang, while members of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church Youth Seeds of Faith performed several interpretive dance numbers to applause from the crowd. 

Several local leaders also were on hand to share in the community celebration. Four members of the New Iberia Council — District 2 Councilman Marlon Lewis, District 3 Councilman David Broussard, District 4 Councilwoman Deidre Ledbetter and District 5 Councilwoman Sherry Guidry — were in attendance, with Guidry delivering the invocation. 

New Iberia Mayor Freddie DeCourt, who admitted he was not a scholar of King’s life and legacy, took a few moments to explain what he took away from his reading of King’s work.

“Everything done on the world is done in hope,” DeCourt said. “You have got to bring people together. You have to have community. That is all the man was about was community.”

The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was established in the 1980s to honor King’s birthday, which falls on Jan. 15. 

The holiday is celebrated on the third Monday in January, with the first federal holiday falling on Jan. 20, 1986. Although Louisiana’s governors had honored King’s birthday, it was an “alternate” holiday in the state for almost two decades. The state legislature finally adopted it as an official state holiday in Louisiana in 2004. 

Parish President Larry Richard said King’s legacy has had a direct impact on his life, telling the audience that he could not have aspired to the office he holds if it were not for the groundwork King laid.

“His life is something we should celebrate daily, not one month of the year,” Richard said. “This is an important time, not only for our youth but for our families. We have so much more to do, so much more to teach.”

Later, Mitchell said one of the surest ways to guarantee change is to vote for it.

“You can make a difference at the polling booth,” Mitchell said. “Every school board member, every city councilman, every parish leader should be here and be in this.”