MLK event, march to be held Saturday

An event and march honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be held on Saturday, Jan. 14.

Kelvin Gadson, founder of the Giving a Child a Dream Foundation, says the event is an opportunity to teach children about their history.

“We just want to get the kids active in the history, letting them know where they came from, letting them participate,” Gadson said.

“When we lose our history, when we lose where we come from, we lose where we’re going to. We don’t know where we are heading,” Gadson said.

Kelvin and Sylvia Gadson will lead the march from Orangeburg’s Memorial Plaza to the King monument on the Orangeburg County Courthouse grounds.

This is the third year of the march, which was inspired by a Martin Luther King Day event Kelvin Gadson saw in Atlanta.

“It was cold, it was cold. You had about 200,000 people out there. Sides of the roads were filled up. People marched and it was just big. I’m like, man, imagine if we had something like this at home,” Gadson said.

This is the third year of the march. During one of the events, Gadson and others worked to improve local kids’ handwriting. In his eyes, the pandemic stunted the growth for a lot of children in that department.

“During the first year of the pandemic, the kids were having problems with their writing. We went and we raised money, we got over 800 dry erase boards. We did the Dr. Martin Luther King march in the Roosevelt Gardens first and as the kids came up, we handed them writing tablets. They were just being so happy,” Gadson said.

“My kids were struggling with writing. When you’ve got little kids, and they never wrote before, once you get them on computers and asking them to write lines, it’s hard,” Gadson said.

Saturday’s event will start on Memorial Plaza at 11 a.m. It’s free to attend. The march will end at the monument at noon.

There will be painting, making of posters, poetry, public speaking and a prayer before the group marches toward the King monument. Gadson is asking for any and every one to attend.

“This is just for everybody – white, black, for everybody that loves what King stood for. The peace, the unity, the equal rights,” Gadson said.

Gadson said the event is designed to teach about King and his work.

“We try to give them a chance to participate in it so they can realize that, hey, I’m bigger than my situation. I can be bigger than anything that’s trying to hold me back. I can be bigger than that,” Gadson said.

“Just come on out, you’re going to love it. Bring your kids, let them make signs,” Gadson said.

For further information, contact Kelvin Gadson at 803-308-7550.