Crowds turn out for Martin Luther King Jr. parade in downtown Las Vegas

To parade is to take action in celebration, to make a public spectacle in honor of someone or something important to the culture at large.

So on Monday, the churches of Las Vegas, the radio stations and the schoolchildren, the politicians and the corporate sponsors, they paraded in honor of the life and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Spectators began to line Fourth Street downtown hours before the festivities, blessed with unseasonably warm weather.

They brought lawn chairs and placed them on the sidewalks.

They stood on the sunny side of the street, marking their spots for later.

They carried their coolers, their cameras, their children.

"Say cheese!" Stephanie Grant cheerily commanded her godchildren, 2 and 3 years old. She snapped a few photos.

"Happy Martin Luther King Day!" she said.

She said she is 30-ish, and she thinks it is important to show the children how important the world believes King was.

"If we don't teach them," she said, "how are they going to know?"

Indeed. King has been gone for nearly 44 years now, long enough that what he did, what he helped accomplish in the world, can seem like ancient history to the young.

He might seem like just another historical figure.

But he is not, of course.

Other than Christopher Columbus, whose accomplishment certainly did change the world, no other federal holiday honors the achievements of a single man.

This year's parade was the 30th in Las Vegas. It began before King's birthday officially became a federal holiday, in 1986. The parade has grown from barely over a dozen entries to nearly 150.

Though King did not accomplish all he set out to do before he was shot down in 1968, the world today is a better one than it was then, Grant said. It is not perfect, but better.

"There are some things that have gotten better," she said. "But there are some things ..."

She trailed off. Got back to the children.

"All we can do," she said, looking at them, "is try to teach them what's best and hope they continue on, teaching it to the next generation."

The parade floats began to stream by then, the children of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, Mayor Carolyn Goodman with her husband, followed by a firetruck, a marching band, a congressional candidate in a convertible, three guys on unicycles because, why not?

Why not indeed. Even if all this heavy stuff is too much, the parade -- any parade -- is a glorious place to people watch.

In the same 50 yards of space Monday morning, for example: a man with his iPod fastened to a chain around his neck with black electrical tape, a woman with bright red fingernails that were long enough to be considered weapons, a girl too young to be doing so wearing a skirt short enough to be illegal in some places, a little boy with a mohawk, the Metropolitan Police Department's gang unit shading themselves under a palm tree, a homeless man on a bicycle with a 12-pack of Keystone beer in one basket and a full McDonald's bag in the other, a skinny man in a T-shirt with no jacket and a short woman with two sweaters and a heavy winter coat.

A little bit for everyone.

"Everyone was very moved by the struggle we represented at the time," said Patricia Brooks, 66, who said she saw King speak when she was a teenager.

She marched, too, she said, with her church when King visited Los Angeles, where she grew up.

She attended Monday's parade because it would be ridiculous not to.

"You have to care about the legacy," Brooks said. "You have to. This is just what you do."

She said thinking back on those times in her life gives her goose bumps. It is impossible to explain in words, she said, the feeling that it gives her.

She nodded toward some nearby children.

"Look at these kids out here," she said. "They really don't know.

"This is a man who brought so much to so many."

That, she said, is why it is important to hold parades for a man like King, the silliness of it all aside. A parade lets the young people know that we, as a culture, find what King did important enough to declare so in public.

Soon enough, one of the largest floats in the parade came by, a flatbed truck holding children from Booker Elementary School, which sits on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

These children, most of them black, each held a sign stating what they wanted to become in life.

The goals were diverse: an engineer, a school principal, a teacher, a judge, a nurse, an architect, a mechanic, a scientist.

The parade moved onward, another marching band, another politician, another group of children taking a lesson from all the fuss.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.

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Comments

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1. divide and conquer Jan. 17, 2012 | 8:51 p.m. Report Abuse

   hmmmm

2. EngineerChris Jan. 17, 2012 | 7:46 p.m. Report Abuse

   Jon.Lewis wrote on January 17, 2012 04:20 AM: "Yet who do you think actually did more for this group, King or Lincoln?". Certainly not Lincoln! Read the truth about him and you'll see he was one of the worst presidents ever!

3. greenhorseman Jan. 17, 2012 | 5:49 p.m. Report Abuse

   Why is every MLK Blvd, Ave, or St. in every city a slum and crime infested violent place? Just a thought?

4. un employed Jan. 17, 2012 | 4:17 p.m. Report Abuse

   i wonder how many people were there because they took a day off and how many people had holiday pay and attended and got paid too ???just sayin folks .

5. un employed Jan. 17, 2012 | 2:07 p.m. Report Abuse

   i woulda went but i was busy fileing my un employment claim ..maybe next time ..

6. Cat.Connolly Jan. 17, 2012 | 1:25 p.m. Report Abuse

   Don.T - yes, white people did show up. I was there with my hubby and 2 kids. Plus there were also people of hispanic and phillipino descent among many others. Dr. King's message is ALL people!
   
   mrs ed - you took the words right out of my mouth!

7. un employed Jan. 17, 2012 | 10:01 a.m. Report Abuse

   Martin luther king jr has had his dream changed into what you see today .his message was that we are all children of god ..now we have afermitive action .class and race welfare and warfare ..i wish Dr king were alive today to see how corrupt and divided our country has become .. sad

8. Don.T Jan. 17, 2012 | 9:43 a.m. Report Abuse

   Any white people show up? Probably not. They had better things to do than pay homage to a loud mouth. At least MLK got us an extra day off.

9. 40-oz Jan. 17, 2012 | 9:09 a.m. Report Abuse

   The government will tell you who to like and who is and was great. Sit down and shut up about it. It is not PC to think.

10. mrs ed Jan. 17, 2012 | 7:29 a.m. Report Abuse

    Glad to see racism is alive and well on the pages of the RJ. Why I bet them there "colored people" were using their food stamps to buy drugs to use in their welfare Cadillacs.

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