Caltrain hosts music-fueled MLK Day celebration train from San Jose to San Francisco

By CBS Bay Area

The sound of the drums filled Caltrain’s Celebration Train on Monday. 

 “I always say, if you play the drum, they will come,” said Grady Turner, a drum instructor with Parkmoore Drummers. 

He and his friends performed on board the train from San Jose to San Francisco for the annual MLK Day march. 

“We’ve been doing this since back in the day, since the 90s, but now we added drummers,” Turner said. “It’s important because we represent peace, we try to follow Martin Luther King’s legacy. And what we do is, we just make people feel good.”

The Northern California Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Foundation hosts the Celebration Train. Since 1985, it has been offering free rides to and from San Francisco for people attending the march in the city. 

“I’m taking my son,” said Alexis Parker, an English teacher from Sunnyvale. “I just really want him to see like the power of marches and the history and the community that happens here.”

This is her third year attending the march. 

“I’ve seen a lot of my students facing danger out in the street, fearing for their families,” Parker said. “I am the advisor for the Black Student Union, we have a lot of conversations about what’s happening in the world and how it’s affecting us and the critical thinking that needs to happen.”

“It’s something that we should do more often for sure,” said Taryn Walker with the Northern California Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Foundation. “Fighting for social justice, because it’s necessary being a woman.”
 
She and Bay Area neighbors like Turner say they are proud to stand up together for their community. 

 “It makes me feel great, 110% great that everybody’s doing it together,” Turner said.