By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Sandra Gray, president of Concerned Citizens of Atmore, announced during the January 14 Atmore City Council meeting the route for this year’s Martin Luther King Day parade and the scheduling of other events in honor of the iconic Civil Rights leader, who was assassinated in 1968.
The memorial events will begin with the MLK Prayer Breakfast, which will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, January 19, at Atmore Community Hospital’s Mayson Auditorium.
Tickets for the breakfast, which are $15 apiece, may be obtained at the door. Gray said the event will feature food, fun and fellowship, including a silent auction.
The festivities will continue on Sunday, when Atmore’s Progressive Civic and Recreation Club will conduct its annual MLK event at Holy Community Center, located at 300 Wilkerson Street.
Gray noted that the annual MLK parade, which is held each year on the federal and state holiday, would take a different route this year.
“Monday (January 21) is the big day for the parade,” she said. “We’re not going to cross the tracks this year; that way, we won’t be holding up a train or anything like that.”
She said the caravan of marchers, floats and other conveyances would leave Houston Avery Park at 10 a.m. and travel down the street named for the slain Civil Rights leader to Ridgeley Street to Main, take a right and proceed up Ashley to Carver Avenue, then back to the park, where she cryptically announced that a surprise is in store.
“After the parade, we have a great big surprise,” she said. “We’re taking it to the sky, doing something that has never happened in Atmore before. You need to get your kids and come out to see this. I won’t say what it is, but it will be the biggest ride that ever happened in the city of Atmore.”
Gray added that prize money would be awarded this year to the top parade entries, with $150 going to the first-place selection, $100 to the second-place entry and $75 for third place.
For more information on the local MLK events, go by Unity House on North Main Street or call Gray at 294-0138.