Bridgette Johnson proudly carried a portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which usually hangs on her living room wall, in the subfreezing cold before, during and after Monday’s MLK Marade.
Johnson, 44, a program director at Denver’s Gathering Place, attends the festivities honoring King every year, she said.
“It’s very important for me — civil rights,” Johnson said. “People died for us to march.”
Thousands showed up with Johnson, despite frigid weather and snow flurries, to participate in the city’s 23rd annual Marade to honor the slain civil-rights activist.
The celebration kicked off at 10 a.m. in City Park at the “I Have a Dream” monument.
John Simonet, a retired director of the Denver Sheriff’s Office and a former safety manager for the city, was among those who gathered.
“I have a dream — that’s why I’m here,” he said. “I still have it.”
As do many others, based on the size of the crowd.
Some people danced and swayed to the rhythm of gospel music played over a public address system.
Others carried colorful signs of hope, celebration and peace.
There were also numerous signs for presidential candidates — most supporting Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton or Dennis Kucinich.
As marchers made their way along East Colfax Avenue on the two-mile route, people watched from behind windows and waved in support.
At the end of the parade, in Civic Center, dignitaries, including former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, addressed the crowd.
As a Colorado legislator in 1974, Webb introduced a bill calling for adoption of a state holiday to recognize King. It failed. Attempts by Webb in 1975 and 1976 also came up empty.
Wellington’s wife, Wilma, took up the cause years later when she was a legislator. The bill passed in 1984.
Wilma Webb, who headed Denver’s Marade for 18 years, wasn’t present Monday because her mother was ill.
Wellington Webb on Monday recalled the many nights his wife came home with “tears in her eyes” over the battles she fought in the Colorado statehouse for the holiday.
“I’m not going to let them see me cry,” he recalled her saying.
King was assassinated April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. The January celebrations mark his birth. He was born Jan. 15, 1929.
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C., in 1963 helped galvanize the civil-rights movement.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.
Webb told the crowd it’s important that the battles fought by King, and those who have picked up his torch, be handed down through the generations.
“This has been a long struggle,” Webb said. “We shouldn’t take it for granted.”
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com
