BENTON -- It was gospel singer Mahalia Jackson who whispered from her spot behind Martin Luther King Jr. for him to tell the crowd at the 1963 March on Washington about his dream -- a monologue he had first given the year before and had repeated several times since.
King departed from his prepared remarks that day at the urging of Jackson and passionately told the hundreds of thousands in attendance about his vision of a future with equal rights for all, delivering what would become his most famous speech five years before his death.
The Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission encouraged people Monday to be both like Jackson and King -- to take action instead of idly sitting by.
The commission dubbed the holiday celebrating the birth and life of King "A Day of Service: A Day On, Not A Day Off." The group brought The Young and the Restless star Eric Braeden, who plays Victor Newman on the soap opera, to speak to a crowd of hundreds Monday at the Benton Event Center.
Braeden's entrance was met with a band, a standing ovation and dozens of attendees -- mostly women -- flocking to the front of the room near the stage to take photos of the celebrity as they screamed and hollered shouts of "Woo!" and "I love you, Victor!"
While the greeting overwhelmed Braeden, whose first remarks were "Well, I'll be damned," it wasn't long before he became more solemn.
He told of his memories growing up in Germany during World War II -- memories of spending days in the basement shelter, of towns in flames and thousands of the newly homeless rushing to gather what was left of farms after bombings -- and ultimately of boarding a ship at age 18 and heading to America, the place he thought represented freedom for all.
He recalled riding a Greyhound bus from New York to the South, seeing firsthand the segregation and discrimination faced by black citizens that was commonplace in the early 1960s.
When he left the South for college in Montana, he learned that as a German immigrant he would also be stereotyped and face discrimination.
As his acting career developed, he'd be asked to play characters who represented Nazi Germany, but never the postwar Germans, he said.
He wanted to shout and ask when America would begin to give Germany credit for its years of successful, peaceful democracy and when Americans would recognize the work and contributions made by German immigrants.
"That question needs to be asked by black people in America," Braeden said. "That is why it's important not only to show athletes and rap singers, but to show the black scientists and teachers and nurses and doctors, and people who work their fingers to the bones for this country -- who have fought in foreign wars for this country. It needs to be fully recognized, and you need to have full, equal rights.
"Let us not forget the thousands of East Germans who cried out for freedom, as you and Martin Luther King have cried out for freedom."
Braeden was joined Monday by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, U.S. and state representatives, Benton leaders, and youth bands and dancers.
But it was Braeden's remarks that resonated most with Mary Franklin of Benton.
"This is what people don't understand -- that just because you are not a black American, Dr. King wanted equality for all men. People don't understand that. It's not a black thing. It's not a white thing. It's for unity," said Franklin, a retired teacher from Caldwell Elementary School in Benton.
She and more than 100 others got in a line that twisted around the large convention center to take photos with Braeden and get his autograph. Braeden won a Daytime Emmy Award for his work on The Young and the Restless.
Outside the large conference room where the majority of the day's event took place, the "A Day of Service: A Day On, Not A Day Off" motto was in full effect.
The Arkansas Department of Workforce Services offered free job-search services, and volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arkansas took coat donations.
During Hutchinson's remarks, the newly sworn-in governor said great leaders inspire people to act and make a choice. He quoted from a letter Little Rock's Catholic High School Principal Steve Straessle wrote to his students in preparation for the holiday Monday, when students would be out of school.
The letter said: "Dr. King does not need you to honor him. What real men truly want is for their lives to inspire action. Get into the game. Don't be a bystander."
Metro on 01/20/2015