WATCH: 'What are you doing for others?'

Hot Springs holds annual MLK celebration and parade

Members of Union Missionary Baptist Church in Hot Springs walk near the front of Monday's MLK Jr. Parade as they come onto Whittington Ave. Photo by Brandon Smith/The Sentinel Record
Members of Union Missionary Baptist Church in Hot Springs walk near the front of Monday's MLK Jr. Parade as they come onto Whittington Ave. Photo by Brandon Smith/The Sentinel Record

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration and parade held Monday emphasized the growing need, not only for unity, but also for a better understanding of the nation's long history with equal human rights.

With the theme of "What Are You Doing For Others?", the parade returned this year after being canceled in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic with Leslie Barnes, executive director of Hot Springs Community Services Office, serving as grand marshal.

Diablo Coleman, director of the Hot Springs Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, said around 170 participated in the parade, which traveled from Whittington Avenue through Central Avenue downtown.



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While the overall attendance was lighter this year, which was expected because of the continuing spread of COVID-19 currently, it went really great, he said.

"I tell you what, it's more important now than ever," Coleman said of the human rights situation and social injustice.

"In the past, it's been stronger. People have been more together and everything else but right now people are so divided and we're just trying to make a difference and bring everybody together, like Dr. King wanted," he said.

The theme, which came from quote by King, fit together nicely with the needs at hand, he said.

"That's what we're trying to get the word out to everybody about -- to help one another," he said. "That's what it's all about. That's what he wanted, was to help, and do what we needed to."

A special "day of service," presented by the MLK Jr. Hot Springs Committee, followed the parade at the Hot Springs Convention Center's Horner Hall where a line of speakers addressed the crowd. Pastor Kelly Allen Green of Roanoke Missionary Baptist Church in Hot Springs, the keynote speaker, said what people need today as a foundation is to "recognize that there is room for change," as well as a necessity for everyone to get their focus together.

"The moment that we look around and we observe the things that are happening and has happened in our society, it's so easy for us to begin to pass the blame," he said. "Black want to pass the blame on the white. Rich want to pass the blame on the poor. The privileged wants to pass the blame on the unprivileged.

"But at the end of the day, no matter where you come from, no matter what grounds you stood on in the midst of your foundation of life, each one of us had to start somewhere. And the sad optics that we have in our society is that everybody has different views," Green said.

He noted how important it is for everyone to stand up for righteousness and that there is room for everyone to do better.

He said eyeglasses do a person no good if they do not wear them, noting, "No matter what the issue with your eyes may be, you still need some help.

"And that's exactly where we are as human beings as we can celebrate 93 years in the life of Martin Luther King if he continued to live. His life was taken away but yet he has done a lot in death that some of us haven't done in our life," he said.

Rev. Arthur L. Hunt, CEO of the College for Aspiring Artists, said people need to "show love that really means action." The corollary of that and what MLK stood for, he said, is simple in that 'his God is our God."

"The same God of Abraham, the same God of Issac -- it's the same God that used the man that God sent here 93 years ago," he said. "Ninety-three years ago God sent a son that would become renowned as a prophet, a pastor, a teacher, one who has the only federal holiday that honors a minister."

Hunt said that in King's circle of influence and challenging moments, the difficult days that he articulated, "he had to deal with mayors that didn't understand what the Bible said about God's people. He had to deal with mayors who were out of order and out of a Biblical alignment. This is a time for the mayors and the ministers and the people in municipalities to understand, 55 years, where are we? Where are we in the lessons of treating people and advancing people from poverty to prosperity -- Where are we?"

He said murders are continuing to happen every day.

"I'm not just talking about murders with guns," he said. "I'm talking also about murders with tongues because we're killing people with our mouths. We're saying things that we need to be praying for, and then criticize with damnation."

Coleman said he appreciated everyone who participated and that next year will hopefully be even bigger and better.

  photo  Prince Hall Affiliated Masons, JM Langston Lodge #84, walk in Monday's MLK Jr. Parade as they come onto Whittington Ave. Photo by Brandon Smith/The Sentinel Record
 
 

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