SAN ANTONIO – The city’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. March is set for Jan. 19, with DreamWeek, a separate series of events, running through Jan. 31.
DreamWeek features a speech from Maria Hoenigman with NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Hoenigman is the director of Outreach and Support for NAMI Greater San Antonio and is one of the speakers for DreamHour.
“[Mental health is] a conversation that needs to happen around many people,” Hoenigman said. “Sometimes we see mental health as a luxury, and we think, OK, I don’t have enough money to be able to go to a counselor. We go to the doctor if we’re feeling palpitations or we go to a doctor if our sugar is high, why not go to the doctor if you’re feeling down?”
Hoenigman also spoke about the importance of removing the stigma around mental health conversations in minority communities.
“I think having conversations,” Hoenigman said. “To be able to give the words and give the education to my community and being able to it to the community that maybe didn’t have those conversations, and they weren’t available to discuss it, or they were told to wash your face, don’t talk about it.”
It’s a stigma Hoenigman wants to get rid of by encouraging people to attend NAMI events or other mental health-centered events, such as those featured during DreamWeek.
DreamWeek leads into the MLK March, which the city’s MLK Commission organizes. Doshie Piper leads that commission as the chair this year and brings years of experience working with the commission to the table of ideas for 2026.
“I marched in 2014,” Piper said. “I think for me at that time, just the various [ways] a community comes together and supports one another, I wanted to be a part of that.”
The MLK March began in 1987 in San Antonio and has remained a longstanding tradition. The MLK Commission secured Olympic All-Around Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas as the keynote speaker and Grammy-winning artist Coco Jones as the headline performer.
“All of this really is about ensuring our youth’s future,” Piper said. “In addition to making sure we are commemorating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.”
Part of the MLK Commission’s work is to raise money for youth scholarships to carry on King’s legacy of giving back.
High school seniors can scan a QR code along the two-hour march route to apply for scholarships online. Anyone who wishes to donate can click here and find the “Scholarship” tab in the drop-down menu.
“While it is a celebration of how far we’ve come, it’s an acknowledgement that we still have so much work to do, and you feel that in the movement as we move along MLK,” Councilmember District 2 Jalen McKee Rodriguez said.
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