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Residents see memorial as ‘part of history’

Residents see memorial as ‘part of history’

Monday, August 15, 2011

The News-Star

WASHINGTON — As a young man, Sam Lollie of Monroe would turn on the radio and listen to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., talk about how blacks were being mistreated across the South.

"Everything he would say stood out for me," Lollie, 67, recalled. "Being raised in the South we almost always had to take the back seat to everything ... I just hate that I wasn't able to participate in some of the marches."

But Lollie will participate in the next national civil rights event, when hundreds of thousands of people from around the country are expected to travel to Washington later this month to attend the Aug. 28 dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial.

The monument is the first on the National Mall honoring an African American.

The ceremony will mark the 48th anniversary of the 1963 "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," when King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the Mall.

Participants will include civil rights icons such as Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, South Carolina Democrat James Clyburn, the highest-ranking black member of Congress, and Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at the Aug. 28 dedication.

The dedication will cap a week of events, including a health summit, galas and a luncheon honoring women leaders of the civil rights movement.

For Linda Logan of Mer Rouge, the trip will be "part of history."

"It's an opportunity for us to go there and see (the monument) firsthand." said Logan, president of the Morehouse Parish Chapter of the National Action Network, a national social justice group. "He's very deserving of this."

During the height of the civil rights movement, King spoke at churches across the South, including Shreveport in Louisiana.

"We want to show this nation that Dr. King meant something here," said Artis Cash, president of the Shreveport chapter of National Action Network. "This monument is a step in the right direction. It is another opportunity for America to say, 'We really did you wrong.'"

Both Cash and Logan are organizing bus trips to Washington.

The day before the dedication, Cash and others will join a jobs march and rally led by Rev. Al Sharpton, head of the National Action Network. The march will start at the Lincoln Memorial and end at the King memorial.

The 1963 march on Washington called attention to the need for jobs and social justice, particularly for African Americans.

"We need this, especially now in this country the way that things are going," Cash said of the Aug. 27 march.

Lollie said attending the dedication will be even more memorable than his earlier trips to see the King Center in Atlanta and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., where King was shot in 1968.

"To be there during the dedication ceremony — that would be something to remember for as long as I live because I missed the "I Have a Dream" speech," Lollie said.

Pastor Kathleen Javery-Bacon of Slidell said King is a major reason behind improved conditions for blacks in the U.S.

"If it wasn't for God and Dr. King we wouldn't be enjoying what we enjoy," said Javery-Bacon, president of the St. Tammany Parish chapter of the National Action Network. "We wouldn't be working where we're working, living where we're living, going through the front door. Dr. King opened many doors for us ... We're not giving up on his dream."

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