The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center hosted its 50th Anniversary Celebration on June 6.

The community center opened in 1976 in King Park, 1531 W. Vliet St., on Milwaukee’s near West Side.

The celebration featured remarks from Milwaukee County leaders, tours of the center, live music and activities for children.

Members of Drums Up Guns Down 414 perform.

Rori Washington, 13, a member of Drums Up Guns Down 414, performs.

Attendees witnessed the unveiling and ribbon-cutting of a new mural commemorating the center’s 50 years of service to the community.

Staff and artists unveil a new mural during the 50th anniversary celebration at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Scroll down to copy and paste the code of our article into your CMS. The codes for images, graphics and other embeddable elements may not transfer exactly as they appear on our site.

*** Also, the code below will NOT copy the featured image on the page. You are welcome to download the main image as a separate element for publication with this story. ***

You are welcome to republish our articles for free using the following ground rules.

Credit should be given, in this format: “By Ron Smith, Wisconsin Watch”
Editing material is prohibited, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and in-house style (for example, using “Milwaukee, Wis.” instead of “Milwaukee” or changing “yesterday” to “last week”)
Other than minor cosmetic and font changes, you may not change the structural appearance or visual format of a story.
If published online, you must include the links and link to milwaukeenns.org
If you share the story on social media, please mention @milwaukeenns (Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky), and ensure that the original featured image associated with the story is visible on the social media post.
Don’t sell the story or any part of it — it may not be marketed as a product.
Don’t extract, store or resell Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service content as a database.
Don’t sell ads against the story. But you can publish it with pre-sold ads.
Your website must include a prominent way to contact you.
Additional elements that are packaged with our story must be labeled.
Users can republish our photos, illustrations, graphics and multimedia elements ONLY with stories with which they originally appeared. You may not separate multimedia elements for standalone use.
If we send you a request to change or remove Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately.

For questions regarding republishing rules please contact Jeff Bauer, digital editor and producer, at jbauer@wisconsinwatch.org.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center celebrates 50 years

by Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
June 9, 2026

<h1>Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center celebrates 50 years</h1>
<p class="byline">by Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service <br />June 9, 2026</p>

<p>The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center hosted its 50th Anniversary Celebration on June 6.</p>
<p>The community center opened in 1976 in King Park, 1531 W. Vliet St., on Milwaukee’s near West Side.</p>
<p>The celebration featured remarks from Milwaukee County leaders, tours of the center, live music and activities for children.</p>
<div class="wp-block-columns alignwide">
<div class="wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-bottom" style="flex-basis:66.66%">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3472-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165633" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Members of Drums Up Guns Down 414 perform.</figcaption></figure>
</p></div>
<div class="wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-bottom" style="flex-basis:33.33%">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3505-683x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165641" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Rori Washington, 13, a member of Drums Up Guns Down 414, performs.</figcaption></figure>
</p></div>
</p></div>
<p>Attendees witnessed the unveiling and ribbon-cutting of a new mural commemorating the center’s 50 years of service to the community.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image alignwide size-full"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3608-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&amp;ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-165626" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Staff and artists unveil a new mural during the 50th anniversary celebration at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center.</figcaption></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-gallery alignfull has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G84A9041-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165632" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3458-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165630" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G84A8954-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165642" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3797-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165627" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G84A9174-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165634" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3751-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165635" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G84A9218-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165625" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3894-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165638" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G84A9224-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165637" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3690-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165621" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G84A9127-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165644" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3689-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165624" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G84A9152-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165628" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3866-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165636" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G84A9158-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165622" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3731-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165629" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G86A3826-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165623" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/G84A9270-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-165643" /></figure>
</figure>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />
<p><em>Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between </em><a href="https://www.catchlight.io/local"><em>CatchLight Local </em></a><em>and </em><a href="https://www.reportforamerica.org/"><em>Report for America</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://milwaukeenns.org/2026/06/09/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-community-center-celebrates-50-years/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://milwaukeenns.org&quot;&gt;Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/cropped-NNS-Favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p>
&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://milwaukeenns.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=165619&amp;amp;ga4=G-HGM4XK3QCM&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://milwaukeenns.org/2026/06/09/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-community-center-celebrates-50-years/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/milwaukeenns.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center celebrates 50 years

Related

Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight LocalPhotographer

Contact

Related

Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight LocalPhotographer

Hey neighbor, let's stay in touch!