Welding students from San Diego Continuing Education (SDCE) will recreate a large-scale Liberty Bell atop of Independence Hall for their float entry during the 40th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade taking place at 2:00pm on Sunday, January 19, 2020 at the Embarcadero.

SDCE’s student welders will design the Civil Rights float under the direction of Master Welder and SDCE faculty member Mike Bradbury.

“We are currently about halfway through the build. I have more students involved than I have had in a long time, so we are going even bigger this year,” said Bradbury. “It will be a lot more colorful than recent years.”

California’s largest noncredit adult education community college institution, SDCE, offers adult learners four free Arc Welding certificates including Shielded Metal, Pipe, Gas Tungsten, Gas Metal and Flux Cored. The skilled and technical trade program is offered at no cost and additional equipment fees are often waived through access to student support programs and grants. SDCE has been named the Entrepreneurial College of the Year by the National Association of Community College Entrepreneurship.

“Building the MLK float is a fantastic work-based learning tool as the students discover how to work within a time line, hold to a budget, collaborate with other students to complete a task, and deliver a completed project on time,” said Bradbury. “They really learn many specialized fabrication techniques during this project.”

SDCE received numerous first place awards during the annual MLK Parade. Last year’s design, a steel cut bust of Dr. King, has been inaugurated into the Broadway Heights neighborhood promenade. Past float entries are in progress to be memorialized around SDCE’s flagship campus, Educational Cultural Complex (ECC) on Oceanview Blvd.

ECC has been a symbol of community and African American activism since its beginnings in 1972. Many significant events have ties to ECC, including the California Commission to establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday and performances by Civil Rights leaders Coretta Scott King, Stevie Wonder, and Maya Angelou.

SDCE’s Historic Preservation Committee will negotiate with the city and state officials to have ECC named as a Civil Rights Landmark Designation.

To support the historic preservation of Educational Cultural Complex, SDCE will host a Coretta Scott King Inaugural Brunch at 11:00am on Saturday, March 7, 2020 in University Heights.