Music swelled inside the atrium of the California African American Museum on Monday as roughly 100 museum visitors held hands and were led in song by the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, “We Shall Overcome,” a protest song associated with the civil rights movement.

As part of CAAM’s annual King Day celebration, ICYOLA joined community members on Martin Luther King Jr. Day for a daylong program featuring live music, family activities and recordings of King’s speeches.

“The goal [of King Day] is to celebrate and honor Dr. King, but also to celebrate and honor all of the people, past and present, who were bold and brave enough to speak truth to power in the way that Dr. King did,” said Cameron Shaw, executive director of CAAM.

Shaw said the museum has celebrated MLK Day in different ways for decades and remains an important tradition. She said over the past few years, CAAM has built relationships with ICYOLA, the largest orchestra of color in America, and the King Study Group, which facilitated a group discussion over King’s speech “The Three Evils of Society,” which criticized racism, militarism and excessive materialism.

“[It’s] an important connection to our mission to support [ICYOLA] and share their artistry with the city,” Shaw said. “It is the future generation of musicians and artists and people who are contributing beauty to their communities.”

During the orchestra’s performance, Charles Dickerson III, founder, executive director and conductor of ICYOLA, said he was proud to see the crowd that gathered to celebrate MLK Day, and he described the celebration as a chance to lift the community up. He condemned oppressive forces like recent United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement detentions of immigrants.

“We are at a time right now in which it seems the higher ideas and concepts of equity and inclusion are besmirched,” Dickerson said. “Those of us who are not necessarily part of the mainstream of this country … we kind of feel like we’re being pushed to the side, pushed down, pushed out. We use music as one way to lift us all.”

One of the pieces the orchestra performed was William Grant Still’s “Afro-American Symphony,” the first symphony composed by an African American that was performed by a prominent orchestra in 1931. Dickerson honored and applauded Yvette Devereaux, the first Black woman to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1995, and an attendant of the event.

Another surprise guest was actor and USC alum William Allen Young, who recited poetry by Paul Laurence Dunbar in between the four movements of the “Afro-American Symphony.”

The King Day event also held a book donation drive facilitated by the Los Angeles Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., supporting the Little Free Library at the Crenshaw Family YMCA. Chapter President and USC alum Wilda W. Tillman said the drive collected over 300 books during the event.

“Our goal is to give the children books that are in great condition [for] free,” Tillman said. “That’s the whole purpose of having books [donated], so we can just keep it replenished.”

Tillman said the Little Free Library promotes literacy while aiming to provide empowering representation in the books given to the community.

“Our little library is in a predominantly African American community,” Tillman said. “Books that they see, the illustrations, need to look like them. It’s very validating for our Black and brown children.”

In light of recent political discourse, Shaw said history demonstrates that when people organize and protest for movements, they can create lasting change.

“There are always new challenges and new obstacles, and I think Dr. King’s words remind us that while those challenges and obstacles can take new shape and new form, we have, in some ways, been here before,” Shaw said. “On one hand, that can feel daunting … It’s actually, I think, really edifying to know that people have stood up [in the past].”

Shaw said she hoped that the event allowed people to find community in CAAM, welcoming them to celebrate MLK Day annually as well as recognizing their role in shaping society.

“I hope that people are reminded that they have an important role to play … in making the world better today and for future generations,” Shaw said. “I hope they find inspiration here. I hope they find community here, and I hope they find strength here, and fun as well.”