Many Marchers; One Message Groups Join Together To Honor King’s Fight For Civil Rights
A Mexican-American woman marched. So did a black schoolteacher. A white grandmother walked with her black daughter-in-law and granddaughter.
They were among the estimated 400 people who marched Monday morning from the U.S. Court House to the Spokane Opera House in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“He did a lot of great things for this country,” said Troy Le Blanc, a 25-year-old special education teacher in the East Valley School District. “I’m a believer in what he believed in.”
Some marchers held signs that read, “Civil Rights.” Another sign said, “Love Not Fear.” One woman held up a large portrait of King.
Carolina Hill-Cisneros, 31, held her 6-year-old son’s hand as they marched. She said marching in King’s honor made her feel good.
“I’m a minority person and he did a lot for us,” said Hill-Cisneros, a Mexican-American.
Evelyn Healey, 53, said she’s more aware of racism because she now has black relatives.
“It hurts in my heart because I see it first-hand,” said Healey, who marched with her granddaughter and black daughter-in-law. “I see the prejudice not so much in Spokane but when they visit me in California.”
She said King tried to heal the nation by taking a stand for unity.
“The least we can do is stand for him,” Healey said.
J.R. Carr, a 14-year-old Shaw Middle School student, marched with a group from Hope Baptist Church. He thinks the nation still has to make some progress before achieving King’s dream of racial equality.
“We’re pretty close, but still pretty far because of the (Ku Klux Klan) and stuff,” Carr said.
When the march reached the Opera House, the crowd jammed inside and listened to speeches and songs.
Bill Burrell, a black Fairchild Air Force Base chaplain, told the gathering that when he traveled with his family from the East Coast to Spokane a couple of years ago, they experienced some troubling examples of racism.
At one restaurant, some patrons wouldn’t sit near his family, Burrell said.
That’s only one example of the prejudice they experienced, he said.
“You ask me why we need to march?” Burrell said. “Because we have not arrived.”
Elsewhere in the state, Martin Luther King Day marches drew about 1,000 people in the rain in Seattle while more than 4,500 attended a rally in the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall.
In Tacoma, the theme was “Never Give Up the Dream.”
The municipal Human Rights Department presented an annual inspiration award to 1964 Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills, a Lakota Indian who fought discrimination.
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