Hold fast to hope
About 300 people of various races, ages and backgrounds join together on Broad Street to keep the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. alive.
Some remember. Others created memories, not just for themselves but for all who saw the signs of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy.
“This is my first march!” 7-year-old Julius Gaines told people excitedly as his mother, Janore Gaines, stood by and smiled proudly.
As a toddler he helped swell the ranks of Rome’s annual Freedom March, she said, but this is the first time he’s aware of the slain civil rights leader it honors.
About 300 men, women and children — of diverse races, ages and backgrounds — showed up Monday for the 31st march down Broad Street capping Rome’s four-day celebration of MLK Day.
As a group they traversed the six blocks to City Hall for a program spotlighting King’s dream of unity, equality and hope.
On the corner of First Avenue where the lineup began, Norma Whatley was teaching her grandchildren Zariah Trammell, 8, and LaDeyvian Trammell, 12, some marching chants. Alvin Jackson, a member of the MLK Commission and newly elected to the Rome City school board, directed the crowd as he has for many years.
“Let the children up front,” he said through a megaphone. “Bring the children and the signs to the front.”
Bishop Norris Allen assembled the marchers for a moment of prayer, then the throng stepped forward as one, singing “We Shall Overcome,” the civil rights anthem of hope.
‘I’ve seen the Promised Land’
Rome and the nation seemed out of hope on April 4, 1968, when King was assassinated at a Memphis hotel just a day after giving a rousing speech that referenced threats on his life.
“But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop ... And I’ve seen the Promised Land,” he said. “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”
Charles Love of Rome was a freshman at Arkansas State University then, an activist who identified with SNCC — the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — and CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality. He said Monday that shock came first, then sadness and anger.
“There was a delayed reaction,” he recalled. “We just couldn’t believe it. We thought, ‘could it get any worse?’”
Riots broke out across the country, and the small group of black students at Arkansas State held vigils. Love said it was years before he could reconnect with King’s belief that non-violence was the path to equality.
“But I think it does work,” he said. “Examples that it hasn’t worked get more attention, but there are many more examples of how we’ve moved forward.”
Shock was also the operative word for Allen and Alfred Shropshire, who were young family men with homes in the same city block in Philadelphia. Both said Monday they were initially focused on the gang-related killing of a teen in their neighborhood that night.
“It took a few days to soak in, then we wondered how bad things were going to get,” Allen Shropshire said. “Finally, cooler heads prevailed. The ministers got together and convinced people to protest peacefully.”
Alfred Shropshire said he felt the same sadness as when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, four and a half
years earlier. But he said he never wavered in his belief that violence “never solves anything. It just heightens the differences.”
His brother also professed faith that the country was still heading in the right direction.
“This is too big of a nation to let one thing change what we are,” Allen Shropshire said. “You’ve got to believe that or all we have is antagonism.”
Herman Ringer said he’s a believer in the Promised Land today.
Ringer owns a limousine company and leads the Strikers Motorcycle Club of Rome. Club members do service work helping the homeless, battered women and kids in need of Christmas presents. On Monday they brought up the rear of the Freedom March, as they do every year.
“If this man hadn’t stepped up, I wouldn’t have my business,” Ringer said. “For that, I thank him.”
A look at the crowd indicates they’re not the only younger adults who may not remember the turmoil of the late 1960s but are committed to honoring the progress.
Vivian Wells has headed the kitchen since 1987, when the Rome MLK Commission first organized the activities that followed the march with a community meal in the Civic Center.
This was her last year, she said Monday. But she pointed to Emma Watkins, Mary Welch and others with their sleeves rolled up, including her grandson, 24-year-old DJ Wells.
“I’ve had good helpers over the years, and they’ll be here after me,” she said.