By Scott Brinton
I was honored to cover the 2025 Hempstead-Hofstra MLK Day Parade and Celebration. Here’s my Long Island Advocate report:
Dressed in a dark purple suit, her hands flowing excitedly and her voice booming through the Hofstra University Student Center on Saturday, Dr. LaQuetta Solomon, clinical psychotherapist and emotional intelligence assessor, declared, “Our existence today is the dream realized. It’s the dream realized that I’m standing here speaking to you.”
The dream that Solomon was referring to was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision for America, the hope and belief that people of all races and creeds would one day live as one, with equal opportunity for all.
Solomon served as the keynote speaker for “Moving Forward: The Dream Realized,” a celebration of Dr. King’s life and work held Saturday in remembrance of his upcoming birthday, Jan. 15. The four-hour event, a collaboration between the Village of Hempstead and Hofstra University, included a parade from Hempstead Village Hall to Hofstra’s North Campus and a cultural program that included song and dance performed by students from the Academy Charter School and Hempstead High School, as well as the Youth and Teens Dance Company in Hempstead.
MLK Day, a federal holiday, is marked annually on the third Monday of January. This year, it falls on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.
Other participants in the celebration included Aviation High School in Long Island City, the United People’s Organization, Uniondale-Hempstead Girl Scout Troop 1570 and the Hofstra wrestling team, among others.
This was the 32nd year that a MLK Day parade has been held in Hempstead, and the third year that Hempstead Village and Hofstra University have teamed up to celebrate Dr. King. Born in Atlanta in 1929, the reverend would have been 96 this year.
Dr. Laurie Hamilton, an educational leader in the Hempstead School District, served as the host and emcee for Saturday’s cultural celebration. The day was intended, she said, to honor Dr. King’s legacy.
Solomon’s 28-minute talk was one part informational, one part inspirational. “It’s the dream realized that we have so many generations here coming together, learning how to work with one another, building community,” she said.
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