With Confederate flag gone, King Day rally shifts focus

“The message of Dr. King and many of our other civil rights leaders through the past decades have been lost”, said Binghamton resident Bobby Black.

We have lost Martin Luther King, everybody’s friend.

Many marchers have been participating in the event for many years.

“We are not where we were, but we still have a long way to go”, Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis said during his remarks at the event.

“By passing on what we’ve experience and what we’ve learned empowers them for our future”, NAACP member Malynthia Nash said.

In Minneapolis, activists with the group Black Lives Matter planned to march onto a Mississippi River bridge that connects Minneapolis and St. Paul during a Martin Luther King Day rally.

About 100 people gathered Monday morning at the Depot Square and then marched to the Rayne Civic Center, where students shared poetry and songs they had written about King, and other members of the community were invited to share what the day means for them.

Michelle Monroe says she brought her children to the march to teach them about their history.

And hopefully many more to come she tells me…

Randolph promised to keep coming to the Statehouse until King’s dream comes to its full meaning in a state with wide gaps in education achievement between school districts in rich, white communities and poorer, black ones, and where the governor and Republican-dominated Legislature have refused to take federal money to expand Medicaid.

“It was him overcoming or challenging his fears that allowed him to become the leader that he was for the civil rights movement”, said Tracey Conyer Lee, who plays Coretta Scott King.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. spoke of Dr. King’s unfinished work.

Courtney Cole: “Why is it important that we celebrate Martin Luther King?” But the march was moved inside due to cold temperatures. “Dr. Martin Luther King Kr. has certainly planted a seed in the minds and hearts of people from all walks of life through time”. Volunteers plan to travel from the Detroit suburb of Dearborn to Flint to deliver more than 40,000 water bottles and water filters on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.