Earlier this month, the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee of Southeastern North Carolina announced they were cancelling the MLK parade this year, citing a potential security concern with the inauguration of Donald Trump falling on the same day.
Related: Why is there no MLK parade in Wilmington this year? (Ask a Reporter)
Sonya Patrick, the chair of the New Hanover County chapter of the National Black Leadership Caucus pushed back against that decision, calling for a march with the phrase, “We Will Not Be Moved.”
The march was held at Williston Middle School, which Patrick said is significant to MLK’s legacy.
“We chose Williston because it's where Dr. King was scheduled to come to the city on April 4, 1968, however, he went. Dr King changed his plans and went to Memphis, Tennessee because he felt a greater need to help the sanitation workers," she said.
Some of the city’s most prominent figures attended in solidarity.
Superior Court Judge Ricardo Jensen (recently re-elected to his seat and is New Hanover County’s first judge of Hispanic descent) asserted to the crowd that, “the fight isn’t over for all of us.”
Members of the Wilmington Sportsman Club, Friends of Williston, the Nation of Islam, the NAACP of New Hanover County, Leland Town Council member Veronica Carter, and Wilmington City Councilman David Joyner also gave speeches expressing the importance of the celebration.
Some speeches alluded to the threat that the incoming administration’s policies pose to civil rights. As did the words of Former New Hanover County Commissioner, Jonathan Barfield:
“It's important that we not be woke, but we stay awake, that we pay attention to what's happening right here in our community. This is the only city in the country that had a successful coup d'etat back in 1898 and I see some of the same things happening now.”
Barfield reminded the marchers that the fight for civil rights will take effort from everyone.
“We're celebrating the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, but to fulfill the dream, we all have a purpose. We all have a mission,” Barfield said. “No matter how big you are, how small you are, how old, how young you are. We all have a purpose and a place in this mission.”
