ARTICLE: http://bit.ly/2ixlBC7
“Rejecting white supremacy and embracing unity and solidarity, hundreds took to the streets on Jan. 14 in Lexington, Va., for the first-ever Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. community parade there.
“It looks like this is something the city has been waiting for for a long time. Words cannot adequately describe how things turned out on this historic day in Lexington. I think Dr. King would be pleased,” said the Rev. Reginald Early of the Randolph Street United Methodist Church, a historically Black church where the parade began and ended.
Lexington is a city of 7,000 people about two hours from Richmond, the state capital. Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, Confederate leaders who fought for the continued enslavement of people of African descent and other people of color and opposed Reconstruction, are buried there. Numerous other Confederate shrines and history abound in the city…
A rainbow of multinational contingents and individuals joined in, filling numerous city blocks with banners, signs, songs and chants imbued with the spirit of Dr. King’s dream and hope to build a people’s world. These included soccer teams and individual players holding such signs as “Give Racism the Red Card”; the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ History Project; 15 Now and Fight For $15 from Roanoke, Va.; Quakers; the Coalition For Justice from Blacksburg, Va.; Black Lives Matter; Peoples Power Assemblies; Workers World Party; and numerous others. A variety of slogans, including “Living Wage, Jobs Not Racism” and “Unite Against State Violence,” were on signs and banners.
Participants resoundingly rejected the glorification of a history rooted in slavery and genocide, and they sent a clear message that the fight against hate and bigotry in Lexington and everywhere will continue.
The emphatic verdict of parade participants — both Lexington community residents and the many that traveled from a variety of cities and states — is that the parade was direly needed, especially in this period and in order to build relationships for future events, campaigns and movements, such as the Jan. 20 Counter-Inaugural protests and the Jan. 21 women’s protests in Washington, D.C., and worldwide.
“A million thanks to this community and everyone who came in solidarity from as far away as York, Pa. This is what people power looks like,” said CARE leader Robin LeBlanc…” http://bit.ly/2ixlBC7
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