The cheers inside Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in West Oakland weren’t for a championship trophy or a buzzer-beater. They were for Steph Curry and his wife, Ayesha, who joined Martin Luther King III and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, to talk about something far larger than basketball: the power of community service to bridge divides.
For the Currys, the moment was personal. Six years ago, when the Golden State Warriors moved across the Bay to San Francisco, the couple decided they couldn’t leave Oakland behind. They founded the Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation, dedicated to giving children access to healthy food, literacy, and safe places to play. Since then, the foundation has raised and invested $90 million and reached more than 35,000 Oakland students. On Tuesday, they announced a new partnership with the Kings’ Realize the Dream initiative, which is calling for 100 million hours of service nationwide by 2029—the centennial of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth.
“It is very surreal to be here, planting our flag in Oakland,” Curry told the crowd. “This is about more than a local effort. It’s about showing what service and volunteerism really mean, following the legacy of Dr. King.”
The symbolism was hard to miss. Coretta Scott King visited the same school in 1972, and now her son and his wife are working alongside one of basketball’s most famous families to reignite the message that anyone can serve. “One of the things dad used to say is, everyone can be great because anybody can serve,” Martin Luther King III reminded the students.
The visit wasn’t just speeches. At the school, the Currys’ foundation has already built a new playground, painted murals, and created a community garden. Principal Roma Groves-Waters, who has worked at the school for 17 years, said those changes matter. “They make kids want to come to school,” she said. “It helps with absenteeism, it lifts their spirits. They can walk around with something nice for a change.”
The backdrop to these efforts is a country still grappling with deep divides. Since the 2020 racial justice protests, diversity and equity programs have been dismantled across corporations, schools, and government. President Trump has called them the “tyranny of DEI.” Martin Luther King III, reflecting on that climate, said his parents taught him to find good even in difficult times. But he acknowledged the struggle: “Freedom is never fully won. Each generation must engage to extend and sustain it.”
For Ayesha Curry, the answer is to make service instinctive. “It shouldn’t be what we’re doing. It just needs to become who we are,” she said. Steph added that, despite the noise in Washington, “underneath the surface, we’re doing the work that is hopefully meaningful and sustainable.”
Oakland, in other words, is meant to be a model. By investing in kids, building joy into schools, and asking people to “lock arms,” the Currys and the Kings are betting that change starts local—and grows outward from there.
