Hundreds attend MLK Day march and festival at historically Black Phoenix church

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In the cool early air of Monday morning, hundreds from Phoenix and the surrounding communities gathered at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church to celebrate the life and legacy of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The plan was simple, to walk the 2.5 miles of urban sprawl from the church to a festival at the Margaret T. Hance Park, and to celebrate among their neighbors, friends and fellow community members, the life of the influential civil rights activist and clergyman today’s national holiday was named after.

“We start at Eastlake Park, an incredibly important location in our city’s history. So much of our city’s history, so much civil rights begins here.” Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said. “We know we still have a lot to do. This year, voting rights are on the top of everyone’s mind… May we have forward motion both in D.C. and in the state house. There is a lot on the line this year. If you are here you know it.”

Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church members, headed by senior pastor Terry E. Mackey and his family, led the start of the march after a prayer.

“As we know Dr. King, although he’s not physically present with us, his spirit will always be with us,” Mackey said. “Because the spirit of protest, the spirit of equality, was embedded in him. And that same spirit has been passed down to us. We have to keep those words, keep those ideas of King alive. In that respect, he will never die.”

Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church Pastor Terry Mackey speaks before the crowd leaves the church parking lot to march to Margret T. Hance Park for the Arizona Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2022 March in Phoenix on Monday, Jan. 17, 2022.
Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church Pastor Terry Mackey speaks before the crowd leaves the church parking lot to march to Margret T. Hance Park for the Arizona Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2022 March in Phoenix on Monday, Jan. 17, 2022.

Several different student and public organizations were present along the crowded streets. Young men and women from fraternities and college associates showed up by the dozens waving banners and flags in support of King.

“Brother Martin Luther King was our fraternity brother. He pledged the fraternity during his time in Boston when he was at seminary,” Cary Lackey, vice president of Delta Tau Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc, said. “Alpha Phi Alpha has always been in the forefront of the civil rights movement, even before Dr. Martin Luther King, but we definitely have always supported our brother, and we’ll continue to do so.”

“More than anything else, we are showing support for the entire community, and making sure that we don’t forget the message of Dr. Martin Luther King,” Kevin Robinson, lecturer with Arizona State University’s Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, said. “Especially in this day and age. I think it's critical that folks remember what he stood for and the things that he sacrificed and the host of others sacrificed in order for us to be where we’re at today.”

“This is fantastic. I love that there’s been such a big turnout. It shows that we are truly a united people and that we need to continue to foster that unification so that we can stop the people that want to divide us as a nation,” Josh Calvert, Arizona admin of the American Armed Front, an antifascist organization present at the march, said.

King, known for nonviolent forms of protest and his famous I Have A Dream speech, believed that people should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

In addition to praising the work of King, organizers used the publicity of the march to promote candidates and causes sympathetic to his civil rights work — chief among them the passage of the Freedom To Vote Act and the elimination of the filibuster.

The crowd marches down Washington Street during the Arizona Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2022 March in Phoenix on Monday, Jan. 17, 2022.
The crowd marches down Washington Street during the Arizona Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2022 March in Phoenix on Monday, Jan. 17, 2022.

“Voting rights are under attack at this moment,” said Raquel Terán, state senator and Arizona Democratic Party chair. “We’re asking all of the members of our delegation, both Republicans and Democrats, to do everything that they can to move legislation at a federal level.

“We are in a state of failing our democracy if we don’t get voting rights done,” she continued.

Many of those walking through the crowd held up signs calling for voting rights legislation to be passed. Junelle Cavero Harnal, a Phoenix resident, was one such person.

“Our superpower is voting,” Cavero Harnal said, pointing to her family, each person equipped with signs laden with quotes and ideas from Dr. King.

“It's so important that we realize, us as a people, where we have come from and how they are trying to suppress our voting rights — not just of African Americans, but of all people,” said Erahn Patton Stinson, who sang the Black national anthem onstage at the Hance Park festival after the march.

Yet above the politics rose two greater themes from the crowd: The first was a reverence for King, and second was the idea that his work is still not finished.

“We still have a long way to go,” Raymond Forte, student at Grand Canyon University and senior pastor at Ebenezer Church Phoenix, said. “But I think we are making progress.”

“The work ain’t done homie. The work is far from freakin’ done,'' Phoenix resident Alexa Melena said. “Until we have real justice for Black and Brown Americans, I ain’t sleeping. Nobody should be sleeping.”

Reach breaking news reporter Brock Blasdell at BBlasdell@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @BrockBlasdell.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 2022 MLK Day festival held at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church