This year marks the end of a legacy as the MLK Association of Santa Clara Valley’s Freedom Train takes its final ride to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

The Freedom Train, chartered by the Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Santa Clara Valley, transports participants via Caltrain from the Dirdon station to San Francisco as a symbolic display of the distance traveled on foot by Dr. King and other civil rights marchers in 1965 from Selma, Ala., to the state’s capital Montgomery. This year marks the 50th anniversary of that march and the 30th anniversary of the Santa Clara Valley Freedom Ride. This year’s ride is Jan. 19 at 9:45 am.

After a steady decline in interest, Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Santa Clara Valley will end the Freedom Ride this year and focus on other initiatives, according to association president Kathleen Flynn.

“We’re really sad about it, but we’ve seen it coming for the last seven years,” Flynn said, adding that organizers surveyed people throughout the years and “people’s needs change and what they  think is important is not the same.”

This year, the ride’s theme is peace, and with all the unrest in the country, Flynn is reminded of how Dr. King marched for peace and focused on bringing communities together.

“We want to ask people to work within our own communities to make change,” Flynn said. “We can’t depend on government or police, we have to depend on one another to take care of our community and kids. They are our future, and we have to give them hope.”

During the ride, Ambassador Dr. Clyde Rivers, representative to the United Nations from Golden Rule International; San Jose City Council member Ash Kalra; and faith leaders will give speeches. Vocalists, such as Angela Borricua from the Center of Living with Dying, will perform for passengers.

There will also be two train cars dedicated to children activities. Once passengers arrive to San Francisco, they will be greeted with a variety of activities including live music and movie screenings.

So far, 400 tickets have been sold this year, a fraction of the 1,600 tickets that were sold in 2008 after President Barack Obama was elected.

“We are just in a different time and people have different ideas of what’s important to them,” Flynn said. “A lot of people, sadly, don’t understand who King was and that a lot of our freedoms are due to his work and legacy along with other great leaders, like Rosa Parks.”

She noted that today people often take certain freedoms for granted, such as sitting on a bus with someone of a different ethnicity or voting.

Though this year marks the last ride, Flynn said the association is working with Mark Simon, executive officer for public affairs of Caltrain and SamTrans, to have a commemorative plaque in the train as well as a plaque in the African American Heritage House.