Strong cold front doesn’t freeze out the MLK March

From Texas Public Radio:

Martin Luther King Jr. Day dawned grey and cold in San Antonio, with lows in the windy 20s. Police estimated that about 200,000 people would walk the nearly three-mile route through the city’s East Side, bundled up against the cold.

People of all types came together, including San Antonio’s Poet Laureate Eddie Vega, who’s been doing it a long time. “I started in, I think, ’95. I came with St Mary’s, where I was going to school, and pretty much kept going ever since,” he said.

Vega said that the MLK March is needed more than ever 56 years since King was killed. “It’s needed to remind us of the struggle,” he added, “but also remind us of the dream, to keep that hope alive, to keep us all together and sharing in the experience.”

Former San Antonio Mayor and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros wasn’t surprised that so many people braved the extreme cold to march, and he contrasted it with what many people endured in the 1950s and 1960s.

“Like the little girls who were blown down the street with fire hoses in Birmingham, the bombing of the Birmingham church, it reminds us that standing up for justice and freedom require physical acts of commitment, and this is one of those,” Cisneros said.

The soon-to-be ex-mayor of San Antonio echoed those views.

“There was a lot of discomfort in the pursuit of justice in this country, and there will be a lot moving forward,” Ron Nirenberg said. “And so the cold is something that we can deal with, but it’s a reminder that the struggle for justice is not going to be comfortable for anyone, but it’s as necessary as ever.”

The entire march stopped before the Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, where a minister addressed marchers directly, with a short message.

“God Bless you, Marchers! Keep the Dream alive! Keep passing it down to our children, our grandchildren and our great grandchildren. Give them the legacy that we are all the same,” he said.

District 3 City Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran was there, despite having a sound reason to be home, snug in bed: her health.

“It’s cancer, and I’m here walking but trying to be mindful of my health also. I know that there’s a lot of people here that that struggle with cancer and different forms, and they’re here marching too,” Viagran said.

She noted this march was a reminder that many of life’s challenges can energize the soul. “We survive, we thrive, we move forward,” she said.

The Dominion Church of God in Christ handed out free hot chocolate and coffee to participants. A long line snaked from MLK Boulevard to their front door, where volunteers handed out cups.

Lee and Carla Johnson moved from Virginia to San Antonio, and this was their first MLK March. They said they were honoring those people who came before, especially those who suffered fighting for the rights they enjoy now.

“The only way we can do the things that we are able to do is because of all the things that he and everyone at that time did to enable us to do what we do today,” Carla Johnson said.

Lee Johnson noticed that despite the San Antonio population’s relatively small Black community, this was the nation’s largest MLK March.

“This is an embodiment of the unity that Dr. King envisioned, and the fact that, because they’re 7% Black, and we can all be here, and I see Black faces, Brown faces, white faces, everybody of every ethnicity coming together in order to celebrate these huge strides that we’ve done in our society, I believe it’s awesome,” Johnson said.

District 2 City Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez said he doesn’t miss the MLK March because of what it does for his spirit.

“It’s a reminder that all of our struggles are interconnected, and all of our joys are interconnected, and we’re going to get through it all together,” McKee-Rodriguez said.

Educator Toni Love said MLK day is a day of action, and she loved seeing so many people who felt the same way.

“It’s not a day off, it’s a day on. And so I just I love it. I love seeing people still come out,” she said.

Nirenberg explained why he showed up on this cold day: “We are marching because we know that progress is never in a straight line, and that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it continues to bend towards justice in cities like San Antonio.”

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