Macon celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day with annual citywide march

Elected officials and local organizations led marchers from four recreation centers down to City Hall in honor of the reverend and civil rights icon.

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — Near freezing temperatures couldn’t stop Macon residents from celebrating the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Elected officials and local organizations led marchers from four recreation centers down to City Hall in honor of the reverend and civil rights icon. Macon-Bibb County District 2 Commissioner Paul Bronson says Dr. King’s dream still requires action, as justice must be fought for and won in each generation.

“As a young African American leader in this community, it’s important to me that I am developing the next group that’s going to come in and lead from the front,” Bronson said. “That’s what we want to make sure that we’re doing.”

Bronson is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., which Dr. King belonged to as well. He says this serves as more motivation to do public service in the community. Bronson believes the organization of the march, from north, south, east and west Macon, down to City Hall, should serve as a model for those organizing to bring about change.

“People coming together, groups coming together as one unified force to say these are the concerns we have in our community,” Bronson said. “And this is how we’re going to make sure that it gets taken care of.”

Many march participants spoke about the need to combat hate in the world today. More than five decades after Dr. King’s death, Willie Dumas, Macon NAACP First Vice President, believes his approach would still be just as effective.

“What he would want us to do is do the things that he did,” Dumas said. “To bridge those gaps, to bring people together.”

Dumas was encouraged by those who braced the sub-40-degree temperatures to carry on the annual tradition. He says it can be easy to forget what Dr. King and other activists endured fighting for the freedoms enjoyed by all today, particularly those who don’t know a world without them.

“Well we want the young people to know that there was a sacrifice that was made for them to enjoy all the freedoms that they enjoy now,” Dumas said. 

Dumas says a new generation of African Americans in Macon and across the country must be ready to fight off what he believes is a persisting threat of oppression, mainly in education.

“They’ve got to step up and be the leaders in this community to make certain that their history isn’t lost,” Dumas said.