"As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence ..."
I'll remember the 2005 Martin Luther King Jr. parade mostly for the wrong reasons.
I'll remember Saturday's parade for unearthing the revelation that one of the city's largest annual gatherings is becoming less about venerating King's legacy of altruism and human rights and more about selfish conceits—about seeing and being seen (witness the shimmy-shaking, elementary school cheerleader, hands on her nonexistent hips, neck swaying, eyes full of attitude), about onerous demands on participating progeny, siblings and friends (witness the boos when kids are too tired to perform every 20 feet in multi-block route), about settling beefs (witness the brief skirmish between rival gang members that sent people scurrying).
I'll also remember the parade for the Rob Blair affair. KTNV Channel 13 fired him for referring to the slain civil rights leader as "Martin Luther Coon King Jr." during the Saturday morning telecast. The weekend weather anchorman then exacerbated the faux pas during an apology, calling him "Martin Luther Kong Jr."
The day started well enough. The weather was clear and crisp, spring timey enough to bring out navels, open-toed sandals, short-shorts, T-shirts and tank tops. Thousands lined 4th Street from Coolidge Avenue to Fremont Street for the 24th annual event. Generations of families commandeered whole portions of sidewalks: grandparents lounging on folding chairs, digital camera-wielding parents snapping photos, children nibbling on cotton candy. A supersize family reunion.
"I never miss the parade," remarked a woman with King's visage airbrushed onto her T-shirt. Next to her, a small, fair-skinned boy chanted "horsey, horsey" as a Metro cop, astride a furry brown steed whose hoofs tapped out a four-beat cadence (du-duh, du-dud ... du-duh, du-huh), trotted along.
As much as any event, the King parade is the African-American community's annual coming-out party, a chance to strut its stuff, show off its vibrancy and reunite the local black diaspora (75 percent of blacks live outside predominantly black West Las Vegas). Professional and business groups, civic and spiritual organizations, political entities, they all come out, for this is their greatest opportunity for exposure. At no other time will so many people be watching. So there's heaping helping of egoism and self importance to go with the pomp. Members of groups who may be active in name only will put on suits and don scarves and walk in military lock-step or wave from cars. For many entities, participating in the parade is a way of saying "we believe in King's legacy," even though their floats didn't reflect it—often a car or two draped in said organization's banner, about keeping the dream.
Like most King parades, performance-oriented participants drew the loudest cheers. Pubescent dance troupes and rump-shaking cheerleaders gigged to the latest tunes. Young girls cooed as male high school youth groups, run by black fraternities, executed syncopated step routines; young boys cat-called the sorority-led female youth groups during their exhibitions. A middle-aged woman seductively wagged her pierced tongue at brawny fraternity members and members of various black motorcycle groups. Also popular with the crowd: the hydraulics-laden cars that, with the flip of a switch, could be made to bounce, rise and ride on three wheels.
Prime viewing was in front of the judges' booth, where folks arrived early to grab spots on stadium-style bleachers. Knowing that the performers saved their best efforts for the judges, late comers tried unsuccessfully to push their way to into the center, only to be rebuffed by stares and the occasional threat. As the entrants passed the booth, shouts of "I see you" accompanied frantic waving to sisters in church praise groups, rifle-twirling brothers in ROTC, cousins atop King-themed floats and friends in marching bands. The crowd energized the performers.
Easily garnering the most praise were elementary- and middle-school floats decorated with images of King and variations on the empowering messages he promulgated—about love, respect and the universal brotherhood of man. Proud children waved from atop floats they worked hard to build.
This is how I would've preferred to remember the parade.
It wasn't to be. A high-school administrator was overheard mentioning that students were coming to cause trouble: "We got scores to settle with them n--gas," he quoted them as saying. Walking through the crowd, you could see the gangland fiefdoms forming. By 10 a.m. (the parade's start time), gangs had already staked out turf, smoking weed and roaming in order to avoid the cops. Standing away from 4th Street, I could see pockets of youngsters outfitted blue and those decked in red getting closer to each other. It was only a matter of time.
Around 1 p.m., an eruption. Fisticuffs between rival gangs.
Screams filled the air, causing people to grab children, bolt away from the street or bound over the gate separating the crowd from the parade entrants. As quickly as the melee started, it ended. The nearly omnipresent police force (on horseback, bikes and foot, in undercover garb) restored order. Violence at the parade isn't unprecedented: a 2001 gang brawl fomented a rivalry that ultimately claimed 16 lives.
Arriving home from the parade, I got a message about the Blair incident, news of which would crescendo into Monday, with mention in both daily papers and regional and national minority journalists jumping on the story. Reverberations will likely be felt for months to come.
Assessing everything, I felt more sad than ashamed. King's utopian dream of a united mankind seemed out of reach for this generation.
Saturday was a day of unbefitting homages: King's parade as a venue for vanity and violence; his name reduced to a racially inflammatory, syntactical error.