MLK parade exceeds expectations


		Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005

What do you think of this story?

Click here to send a message to the editor.

Bad Links?
Other glitches?
Notify Webmaster

MLK parade exceeds expectations

Kayla Marshall of Riverdale (near right), a member of The High Steppers of Atlanta, uses a scarf around her face to keep warm before the start of the MLK parade Monday in Fayetteville. Photo/Beth Snipes.
___________________________

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

Bundled up against a wind-chill in the single digits Monday morning, a crowd three times larger than the one expected came out for Fayette County’s first Martin Luther King Day parade.

“Overwhelming” is how the day’s events were described by the Rev. Ed Johnson, pastor of Flat Rock AME Church and president of the Fayette County branch of the NAACP, organizers of the Fayetteville march and a two-hour service that followed.

About 500 people, mostly black but with a scattering of white faces, walked or rode in the parade. A couple of hundred more lined the chilly route, Fayetteville police estimated.

The department’s Mobile Command Unit was activated, and two shifts of officers were on duty, but everything went smoothly, said Lt. Derek Brown, commanding officer.

“This is what we would use for any parade normally,” he said. “We had no reason to think this would be any different.”

The processional was perhaps the most public display ever of the growing size and influence of Fayette County’s black population, and included a smattering of politicians, several churches, civic groups and members of the Fayette County Democratic Women and the Fayette County Republican Party.

Some who participated said they don’t live here but wanted to be a part anyway.

“This is wonderful, it has a real hometown feel to it,” said Atlanta resident James Powell, who walked in the parade handing out flyers for his employer, Liberty Tax Service in Fayetteville.

“That’s why people want to move into a community like this,” Powell said.

His coworker, Deborah Scott, who walked in the parade decked out in a Statue of Liberty costume, said she tried to get out of her south DeKalb County neighborhood for three years before finally moving to Fayetteville on New Year’s Eve.

“We moved here for the schools,” she explained. “The best schools in the state are right here in Fayette County. We love it here.”

The schools were also the draw for Maj. Dionysius Anderson, who bought a house in Fayetteville on the recommendation of friends six months ago after being transferred to Fort McPherson from Michigan.

He was enjoying his first Fayette County MLK celebration with his 11-year-old daughter, a sixth-grader at Fayette Middle School.

“This has been a real educational experience for her,” said Anderson.

State Rep. Virgil Fludd of Tyrone, and State Sen. Valencia Seay of Riverdale, who both represent parts of Fayette County, marched the route.

Seay said the turnout was another sign that Fayette County is moving in the right direction.

“I think it’s going to get support and [get] bigger as the years go on. If we have 500 here today, we’ll have 1,000 next year,” she said. “Fayette County is recognizing its diversity and I think that’s good for the community.”

The convocation drew a standing-room-only crowd of more than 800 people, who lined the walls and spilled into the lobby of F.A. Sams Auditorium.

Starting in 2001, the NAACP and the Fayette County School Board have cohosted a King Day program, moved from Starr’s Mill High to the LaFayette Education Center this year to provide a more central, and intimate, setting, Johnson said.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have to move this to a larger facility next year,” he declared to cheers and applause as the service got under way Monday. It included singing, speeches, interpretative dance, dramatic presentations and the first-ever performance of the Fayette Community Gospel Choir.

“This is about building bridges between the community and the critics and all those people who say Fayette County is not a progressive place,” said an emotional Johnson, addressing the crowd.

“We wanted to prove that this is a place where little black boys and white boys can sit down together and play,” he said. “We organized this so all God’s people could come together and we could truly have unity in our community.”

School Superintendent John DeCotis told the assembly about his recent trip to London with the Fayette County High School Marching Band.

“We went to Westminster Abbey, where they have statues of religious martyrs lining the walls,” said DeCotis. “To our surprise, one of them was of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We were so proud to see that someone from our home state was recognized as a man of peace by another country.”