MLK Day Parade

This was the 3rd year for us at the Savannah MLK parade. We always sit at the same corner. It's not on purpose, I just always end up there. It's easy to park and walk, and it's close to the beginning of the parade.

We all have our favorite parts of the parade. Elliot likes the drum lines. Elsie likes the decorated vans and cars. And me, well, I have to admit that my favorite part is the dancing girls at the front of the bands. They're pretty much unbelievable. I mean, I was one of the girls at the front of the band in my high school. And I never moved like that. I love that every band member is perfectly in step, that the girls move effortlessly in a wave of sparkles and smiles, that the drummers sound at least 5 years older than they should. I love those bands.

Of course for all three years we've been the only white people on the entire street. But it's still my favorite parade. Because it means something. Because there are hundreds of years of agony and pain and redemption and hope tied up in that parade and in that man's life. Last year when we went, the parade was happening in anticipation of the inauguration of Obama. Watching the floats and the people on them, the messages on the sides of the cars, it was pretty overwhelming. I cried, sitting with my children, on MLK Drive, in a huge crowd of black families. I cried just thinking of what a victory it was, at what Frederick Douglas would have thought about that day, at what all of those that lived and died only knowing slavery would have felt if they could have seen that day.

So I'll keep going to the MLK day parade. Maybe other white families line the streets further down the parade route. Maybe they don't. But I'm thankful for the parade, for the people, for the celebration. I'm thankful that our country recognizes such a man and such a movement. And I'm thankful that God has plans to redeem and to heal, beyond what even Dr. King dreamed.