SANTA CRUZ >> More than 1,000 community members took to the streets of Santa Cruz Monday as part of an annual march meant to commemorate the life and legacy of civil rights champion Martin Luther King Jr.

“In such a time as this, there’s work we have to do,” said Elaine Johnson, president of the Santa Cruz County NAACP branch which organized the event. “We can do it from a place of love, we can do it from a place of acceptance. But there is work that we have got to do.”

That work includes voter education, getting residents to volunteer on local commissions and boards and plugging in to various community groups and organizations, added Johnson.

“It’s not a stop and start thing,” Johnson said. “People need support now more than ever.”

A federal holiday since 1983, participants in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day march sang songs, blew horns, flew flags and pounded drums in the crisp winter air as they made the roughly half-mile journey from the corner of Pacific Avenue and Cathcart Street to the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. For many that joined the open-air gathering with down jackets and wool beanies, the march was equal parts a way to publicly honor King, who would have been 96 on Jan. 15, and a demonstration against President Donald Trump, who took his oath of office for the second time that morning in Washington.

“It’s extremely important that we still demonstrate a presence for the values that Santa Cruz has traditionally stood for,” said Shelly D’Amour, who wore a twin-pointed pink beanie that hearkened back to the Women’s March that manifested in 2017 the day after Trump’s first inauguration. “Support for the most vulnerable, immigrants, health care, voting rights for sure and extending that to other communities around the world. I think it’s a very positive thing to do on Martin Luther King’s birthday compared with the extraordinary irony of what’s going on in D.C.”

This glaring juxtaposition was acknowledged by King’s own family, who viewed the day as an opportunity to paint contrasting visions for the future.

“I’m glad it occurred on that day because it gives the United States of America and the world the contrast in pictures. Is this the way you want to go — or is this the way you want to go?” said the Rev. Bernice King, the late King’s youngest daughter and CEO of the King Center.

For Adam Spickler, a Cabrillo College trustee and the first openly transgender man elected to public office in California history, the Martin Luther King Jr. People’s March for the Dream was a time to express solidarity among different marginalized communities that might be targeted in the coming term.

“Today is about, for me, honor and resistance. They go hand-in-hand with who we are honoring at this march and what we’re facing in the world right now,” said Spickler. “Solidarity is knowing who is doing the work and making sure we’re propping them up financially, politically, with advocacy and all of that.”

Once inside the auditorium, a series of speeches were given by local leaders including Johnson, Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, state Senator John Laird, Thriving Immigrants Initiative Project Director Paulina Moreno and Chief Network Officer of Brotherhood of Elders Network Gregory Hodge. The auditorium was also outfitted as a resource fair that opened to the public once the speeches concluded and featured almost 20 tabling organizations such as the Resource Center for Nonviolence, Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, Showing Up for Racial Justice Santa Cruz County and Santa Cruz County Office of the Public Defender.

Outside the auditorium stood Neli Moody, who said she grew up during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and remembers her family, the descendants of slaves, participating in various events near where she was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“The history of this nation has been the history of more rights for people. And as I look at this period in history I see taking away rights. Taking away rights for women, taking away for people of color. All of that is just very disheartening,” said Moody, adding that the march gives everyone a chance to continue the legacy set in motion by civil rights leaders from previous generations. “I have to believe that there’s something better. I have to believe that whatever they did was worth something. And that it’s up to us to make it worth something.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.