MLK Weekend 2023 : Harmonies of Liberty

Many thanks to our local King Commission for their hard work year after year in planning and producing a very full weekend of activities to celebrate the principles of equality, non-violence, and justice taught by Martin Luther King Jr.   Two of our dear friends are its leaders, Mayor Sundai Stevenson, chair, and Alvin Jackson, vice chair.

Sheila and I especially enjoyed and were inspired by the ecumenical service on Sunday afternoon at First United Methodist Church. The music was moving and the message from the Rev. Dr. R.L. White was an eloquent and powerful retelling of the Joseph story. 

As the program closed that beautiful sanctuary reverberated with the united voices of all races and hues singing "We Shall Overcome," I had tears in my eyes. 

This morning Sheila and I headed down to the corner of Broad Street and First Avenue to join the throng waiting to stride up Broad Street in a commemorative march to remind ourselves and our neighbors of the brave struggle to end segregation and Jim Crow evil right here in our own hometown. We marched past buildings where I witnessed segregated water fountains and lunch counters in my own teen years. 

As march leader Alvin Jackson called on us to form the march Sheila and I fell in toward the front. 

There was a very large crowd this year. But there were many that we walk with almost every year like Wendy Davis (purple jacket), Jim Watkins (in the middle), Vincent Mendez (in the cap)...

Alvin Jackson has led this march for nearly four decades now. I am proud to have marched with him for about the last twenty of those years. 

We sang "We Shall Overcome" and other songs of the civil-rights struggle.

The march ended at the city auditorium where we took an opportunity to have a picture taken with Alvin Jackson.

Unrelated photo: On the way back down Broad we noticed this artwork by, I suspect, our friend Jeremy Smith. This takes a major portion of the front window of the V3 Magazine building. Jeremy uses spray "snow" to create this art. Ain't he something?

Here are three other posts made on this day in the past...

2006

2007

2021

 

Rome's Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday 2023

Sheila and I usually make the Saturday breakfast at Lovejoy Baptist Church and almost always the march on Monday. Why don't you come join us this year? 

In a time when racists and fascists have ventured out of hiding, those of us who believe in the brotherhood of mankind need to make ourselves visible. And this is an easy way that can be an effective message if enough of us show up. The march is a twenty-minute walk up Broad Street singing "We Shall Overcome" and other songs of freedom. Check the weather, bundle up as necessary, and come on! All are welcome. 

Thank you to the folks who give so much time, effort, heart each year to make this successful, especially Alvin Jackson and Sundai Stevenson.

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37th annual MLK Day March

 

King Day 2017

Lining up for the march. This picture is from Monica Shepherd's Facebook page. I see myself and Lillian in this shot.

Sheila and I were pleased to have this wonderful piece of artwork by James Schroeder to carry in the march today. I am wearing a Barack Obama inauguration t-shirt. Sheila is wearing her "Turn Your Back on Hate" shirt.

And what a joy to have our daughter Lillian to walk with us.

Commissioner Wendy Davis

Alvin Jackson has led the march for the King Celebration in Rome since its beginning.

Howard Smith

In a team building and goal setting retreat I was conducting for Rome's City Commissioners Buddy Mitchell, as Chairman, once said "working together works"..... and, he meant it.

Our pastor, Rev. Kenny Ott

 had a part in the program.

Anita Stewart
Great, Kenny!

Ruth Baird Shaw
Kenny...Thank you!

Jesse Reed, who is a classmate of our daughter Brannon, is the leader of the "Turn Your Back on Hate" group.

Carol Payne

Yeah, Jessie!!

City Commissioner Sundai Stevensoin

Anita Stewart
What an inspiration....yeah, Sundai!

Wendy Davis
Great weekend! So proud of Sundai's efforts!!

John Paul Schulz
Sundai is cool

After the program at the City Auditorium (above) we drove out to the old Main High building for a lunch.

Hilda Atkins Moore
My heart and love are there.

Howard Smith
proud of Wendy Davis

Wendy Davis
Thanks for the pix, Terrell!!

Reginald Gordon
Awesome I'll be there next year

Lois Gilbert
Thank you Terry!

John Countryman
Terrific turnout!

Anita Stewart
 Excellent crowd.

Cornelia Gamble
Thank you, Terrell. I felt like I was there. I have been there many times.

Melanie Collette Babb
 Thanks for posting

George Dean 
· My family thanks you and yours!

CeCe Baker
 Thank you.

George Dean
 No justice No peace! Freedom!

Hilda Atkins Moore 
·Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!!! We're on the RIGHT track.. TGBTG......

Andi Rouse Beyer
 Great crowd!

 

Marching for Equality 2015

Our wonderful police chief Elaine Snow was the very first woman police officer in Rome 40 years ago, and is now our Chief of Police. Here she talks with Lillian before the march commences.

 

The marchers gather on First Avenue...

Ready to turn onto Broad and begin the march...

Me flanked by my two favorite marchers.

We Shall Overcome! I remember when, at the base of the stairs about halfway back on the first floor of Penneys, now Johnny's Pizza, was a large water fountain marked "Whites" and the smaller one to its right marked "Colored".

It is so good to see young southern guys like artist James Schroeder (plaid shirt) stepping out to support equal rights.

Folks watch the march from the upper floors of the Broad Street stores. 

Gleaning Facebook: Mildred Marches for Peace

From Facebook (Candice Dyer's page)

Mildred Greear is still haunted by the screams and wails she heard from the community known as "the quarter," when she was growing up in Laurel, MS, the "lynching capital of the country." She likened the sound to the "lowest of the low notes on a pipe organ." As an educator, she campaigned for integration, and she has been a lifelong activist and humanitarian, running a domestic violence shelter, organizing coat drives for earthquake victims (no child will shiver in the cold, if she has anything to do with it), working for environmental conservation, and performing countless other good deeds in the name of social justice. (She is also a poet nonpareil.) Mildred will march in the MLK peace demonstration tomorrow in Clarkesville. She is 94 years old.

Join us, if you'd like, and learn from Mildred's example. 2 p.m. at the gazebo.

 Makes me want to drive to Clarksville to join one of my beloved mentors in this march.

But remember folks, we have a commemorative march right here in Rome. Gather at 11 a.m. at the Etowah River end of Broad Street at 1st Ave. Let's make the 2015 march the biggest, most diverse one ever.

Gleaning Facebook: Money In Politics

And those gifts were a mere pittance to each of those 132 givers. For contributions that, relative to their wealth, are negligible to the plutocrats, they are purchasing (really stealing) our government from us. I have not figured it out this time around, but in 2012 this old school teacher donated much, much more in percentage of wealth to candidates than Sheldon Adelman or the Koch Brothers, or Soros or Blumberg.

With the forgotten change they can figuratively dig from under the sofa cushions they can fund the lying direct mail and TV ads that gin up angry votes for Tea Party extremists who, in Congress, keep minimum wage low, deplete our national resources, warm our climate, and block many reforms that have massive public support in our supposed republic. As was recognized by Roosevelt and Taft a hundred years ago, we must reduce the influence of great wealth in our public affairs.

If it takes a Constitutional amendment we must rid our nation of the obscene Citizens United ruling. And each of us must read more than the simplistic hit-pieces and hear more than the lying TV campaign ads or listen to the talk radio/24 hour "news" folk whose living depends on inflaming us.

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Comments

Howard Smith This President has done more to restore America's economic well being than any President since FDR. Those on the right that continue to berate his performance are in denial. Whether its based on party or race or misinformation, they fail to accept the fact that pulling us out of the Great Recession of his predecessor GW Bush is second only to FDR lifting us from the Great Depression. And, one glaring difference is obvious...FDR was able to garner bipartisan support for his policies. President Obama has faced an opposition party that has publicly declared its intent to obstruct him for political gain.
Michael J. Burton Why the disconnect?
Raymond Atkins Seriously, Mike?
Joe Kidd My God, did McDonald's really hire over 200,000 burger flippers??
Laurie Craw I'll flip burgers when the minimum wage gets hiked to at least $10.10. The State of Georgia pays a LOT of its employees LESS than that!

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Comment

Laurie Craw

We need a similar poster for women. This is an pivotal election for women's rights, women's health and economic well-being. While no woman's suffrage leader that I know of was martyred, many spent time in prison, on hunger strikes and endured humiliation and assaults. My own grandmothers for most of their lives did not have the right to vote. My mother was 11 years old when the right was finally secured. Like the anti-slavery and civil rights movements, the women's movement was a long hard struggle and it continues. Let all the women you know who might not vote know that their rights rest on the struggles and sacrifices of many women who went before.