CLEVELAND, Ohio — Decades after Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first celebrated as a federally recognized holiday, Cleveland found its own way to pause, gather, and listen.
A local holiday tradition continued Sunday afternoon as Cuyahoga Community College hosted its 49th annual celebration honoring the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Inside the KeyBank State Theatre at Playhouse Square, students, educators, artists, and community members came together not simply to mark King’s birthday, but to engage with the responsibility his legacy continues to demand.
The celebration began with movement. Students from the Tri‑C Creative Arts Academy Dance Collective opened the program with a performance that commanded the room. The dancers conveyed themes of struggle, resilience, and forward momentum, signaling that King’s story would be told through more than speeches alone.
Reflection followed through student voices.
Two Tri‑C students were selected through an essay contest to respond to a line from King’s 1965 commencement address at Oberlin College: “The time is always right to do what is right.”
Rather than approaching the quote as distant history, both essayists grounded their reflections in lived experience.
Salma Marzouk, a College Credit Plus student and high school sophomore, focused on the generational inheritance of self‑doubt shaped by racism. Marzouk said: “You start to question yourself. Is something wrong with me? No. It was just your skin.”
Mona Pruitt, a registered nursing student with 20 years of service at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, followed with her own perspective shaped by a career spent caring for others. Together, the student essays reinforced the idea that King’s legacy remains active and unfinished.
Throughout the afternoon, several students were also recognized as recipients of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Scholarship Fund and the Cleveland Teachers Union Endowed Scholarship Fund. Tri‑C President Michael A. Baston acknowledged the recipients, underscoring education as one of King’s enduring pathways toward equity and civic responsibility.
The Clark Sisters turned the State Theatre into a gospel revival, drawing audience members into the aisles as they danced and sang along.
Longtime Fox 8 News anchor Wayne Dawson, who served as emcee and is a former Tri-C student, closed the program by urging attendees to move beyond celebration and honor the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. through action.