Motherlode Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee

04/15/2025

Please join us!

01/18/2025

Parking on campus is very limited due to another event. We recommend parking near the Red Church or the parking structure on Washington Street. At least the weather is nice and you’ll get some vitamin D and bonus steps in!

01/06/2025

MOTHERLODE MLK EVENT

TO BE HELD ON SATURDAY, JAN. 18

For the first time in 30 years, the Motherlode Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee is switching its annual celebration of Dr. King’s birthday from Sunday to Saturday. The public is invited to this free program at 2 p.m. on Saturday, January 18, at Sonora High School Auditorium, located at the corner of Washington St. and Shaw’s Flat Road in Sonora.

The 2025 theme, “From Bias to Belonging: Nurturing Dr. King’s Vision of Community” will be explored by keynote speaker, Dr. Nikum Pon. Born in Cambodia during the time of the “killing fields,” Dr. Pon’s family defied incredible odds to escape to the U.S. when he was a child. He has since dedicated his life to empowering underserved communities, recently returning to Cambodia to establish schools for those in need.

The celebration will also include performances by the Sierra Waldorf Community Choir directed by Carol Weston Crich and accompanied by pianist Mark Seiver. Community activist Jenn Salazar has been selected to receive The Laurie Bailey Social Justice award for her outstanding work advocating for the unhoused.

The 90-minute program will be followed by a reception with refreshments in the school library. The audience is invited to join the speaker and performers there.

12/26/2024

We hope you can joins us on Saturday, January 18th at 2:00. Reception to follow in the library.

07/07/2024

SAVE THE DATE

MLK Committee Fundraiser

Thursday, August 15, 6 p.m.

Murphys Creek Theater preview night

The Cake

From the writer of NBC's hit show "This is Us" comes a hilarious and compelling stage experience. A vivacious, North Carolina baker named Della dreams of making her splash in the world as a contestant on a famous baking show, faces a crisis of conscience when her goddaughter, Jen - whom she loves like a daughter - asks her to bake a cake for a wedding. A wedding for Jen and her fiancée.

Murphys Creek Theater Preview Night

Thursday, August 15

Reception begins at 6 p.m., play at 7 p.m.

Tickets $25 (includes reception)

To buy tickets, call 209-532-8863 and leave a message for Darlene. We urge you to get your tickets in advance since we are hoping to sell out. Any tickets left will be available at the door. Thank you for your support.

The play, The Cake, begins at 7 p.m.

Reception begins at 6 p.m.

Tickets $25 (includes reception)

All proceeds benefit the Motherlode Martin Luther King Jr. Committee and are used to put on annual MLK programs.

01/26/2024

Thank you Access Tuolumne for recording the 2024 program!

Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration - January 14, 2024

01/05/2024

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message of non-violence and non-violent resistance is more relevant today than ever. As we face a world of wars and conflicts, it would do us good to stop and reflect on Dr. King’s message that we must to “learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

The community is invited to a celebration of what would have been his 95th birthday on Sunday, January 14 at 2 p.m. in the Sonora High School auditorium, 430 N. Washington St., Sonora. All are welcome to this free event presented by the Motherlode Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee and held in this community for the 27th year.

The theme of this year’s program is "Unity in Diversity: Embracing Equality and Empowering Change." Speakers Morgan Rain of the LGBTQ+ Rural Resource Center and Mark Dyken of Resiliency Village, for people facing homelessness, will discuss their services. Dr. Stephanie Beaver-Guzman (Hupa/Yurok), Counselor at Columbia College, will talk about our local tribal community efforts, including the Chicken Ranch Rancheria Me-Wuk Indians and the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians, as well as the Southern Sierra Miwok Nation in Mariposa County. Singer and Bret Harte High student, Lily O’Geen, will perform, as well as Healing Drum, a women’s drumming group through Tuolumne Me-Wuk Tribal Social Services.

Two deserving community members will each receive the Laurie Bailie Social Justice Award this year: social justice activist Vonna Breeze-Martin, and writer Sylvia Roberts whose book, Mining for Freedom: Black History Meets the California Gold Rush, focuses on Black miners in the Mother Lode. Both women are former members of the Motherlode Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee.

The MLK Committee has presented annual programs, wholly supported by local donations, since 1996 in support of Dr. King’s stand on poverty, racism and social justice.

A reception with refreshments will follow in the school cafeteria. For more information, see Facebook, Motherlode Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee.

12/01/2023

08/07/2023

Save the date for our preview night fundraiser!❤️‍🔥

02/13/2023

Choctaw Tribe
The Choctaw were first noted by Europeans in French written records of 1675. Their mother mound is Nanih Waiya, a great earthwork platform mound located in central-east Mississippi. Early Spanish explorers of the mid-16th century in the Southeast encountered ancestral Mississippian culture villages and chiefs.
The Choctaw coalesced as a people in the 17th century and developed at least three distinct political and geographical divisions: eastern, western, and southern. These different groups sometimes created distinct, independent alliances with nearby European powers. These included the French, based on the Gulf Coast and in Louisiana; the English of the Southeast, and the Spanish of Florida and Louisiana during the colonial era.
Most Choctaw allied with the Americans during American Revolution, War of 1812, and the Red Stick War, most notably at the Battle of New Orleans. European Americans considered the Choctaw to be one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" of the Southeast. The Choctaw and the United States agreed to a total of nine treaties. By the last three, the US gained vast land cessions in the Southeast. As part of Indian Removal, despite not having waged war against the United States, the majority of Choctaw were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory from 1831 to 1833. The Choctaw government in Indian Territory had three districts, each with its own chief, who together with the town chiefs sat on their National Council.
Those Choctaw who chose to stay in the state of Mississippi were considered state and U.S. citizens; they were one of the first major non-European ethnic groups to be granted citizenship. Article 14 in the 1830 treaty with the Choctaw stated Choctaws may wish to become citizens of the United States under the 14th Article of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek on all of the combined lands which were consolidated under Article I from all previous treaties between the United States and the Choctaw.
During the American Civil War, the Choctaw in both Indian Territory and Mississippi mostly sided with the Confederate States of America. Under the late 19th-century Dawes Act and Curtis Acts, the US federal government broke up tribal land holdings and dissolved tribal governments in Indian Territory in order to extinguish Indian land claims before admission of Oklahoma as a state in 1907. From that period, for several decades the US Bureau of Indian Affairs appointed chiefs of the Choctaw and other tribes in the former Indian Territory.
During World War I, Choctaw soldiers served in the US military as some of the first Native American codetalkers, using the Choctaw language. Since the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the Choctaw people in three areas have reconstituted their governments and gained federal recognition. The largest are the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma.
Since the 20th century, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians were federally recognized in 1945, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma in 1971, and the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in 1995
Thanks Donna