Hundreds March Through Austin in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr

Today is the day we honor one of the most important people in history, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Community activists say MLK Day gives them a kick start to next month’s celebration of black history. “What he would say today is for us to get together and trust each other”.

Dailey was a part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

It was a cold, windy and snowy march, but it wouldn’t have been a proper Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration without a little bit of adversity. O’Malley said King would be ashamed his county has made it harder to vote and easier to buy a gun.

Swinton says the uses the fun parade as a way to open up the conversation about the past and present struggles with race and inequality.

The Washington Marion High School Marching band played some classic and modern day pop hits.

“I never had a feeling like I had at that particular time when Dr. King was assassinated, I felt like we had lost it all”, Rountree said. “A product of that sacrifice and a product of that hard work”, he said.

“We are now starting to make a lot of progress and continue to diversify the city, but we still have a lot of problems”, Deshotel said. Residents said they are praying for peace in 2016.

A keynote address was delivered by Mary Hunter, 92, of Bangor, who described what it was like to grow up in the segregated South in the 1920s and 1930s and how King helped bring about change.

It takes an act of Congress, and then some, to make it happen.

“It’s nearly even and a year ago we might have had more non-African Americans”, he said.

“Looking to my side and seeing people of all different religions and colors coming together, that’s really what made it a positive experience”, NAACP Youth Council President David Early said.

“This is a white kid – we’re talking about 1966 – driving four black kids around Atlanta”, Houck continued.