Over 500 community members of various races, ages, occupations and organizations united on a chilly Monday to march in the annual King National Holiday Parade down E. University Avenue in Gainesville to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The parade is part of the 41st King Celebration Anniversary, a series of events set from Jan. 11-20 celebrating King’s 96th birthday and centered around 2025’s theme, “A Resilient People, We’re Not Going Back!”
“Different people stand for different things, but we’ve got many people across the country today doing this to honor Martin Luther King Jr.,” said John Alexander, Gainesville’s director of government affairs and community relations. “Some people feel like our country is divided. But it’s events like this that bring us together. That’s what MLK was all about.”
Rodney Long, the founder of Gainesville’s Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Florida, led the parade on the 1.5-mile route from the MLK Jr. Memorial Gardens downtown by City Hall to Citizens Field. Long was also one of the first African Americans to serve on both the Gainesville City Commission and the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners.
Local 352 Marching Band stepped in time to rock ‘n’ roll classics, followed by leaders and members of activist groups such as Veterans for Peace, Gainesville Women for Democracy and the Human Rights Council of North Central Florida.
Holding a sign reading “Civil rights + employment = freedom,” Renee Andrews said she marched in the parade to represent freedom and equality in support of MLK’s causes as a “union gal.”
Debbie Fields marched alongside Andrews, saying she marched so that people don’t get “lackadaisical” about King’s dream.
“We must keep marching so they know all over we’re not giving up on equal rights for all,” she said.
The Twenty Pearls Foundation treated parade participants to a bake sale to raise money for scholarships for Alachua County Public Schools seniors and their Miss Fashionetta pageant. The organization’s vice president Brooksie McGraw said she hoped that her members who participated in the parade recognized the significance of King’s work in their lives.
“The girls are required to walk in the parade so that they can understand what our ancestors went through to fight for our freedom, our rights, civil rights and the power to vote,” McGraw said. “Hopefully they’ll see that they’re able to use their voice.”
With the holiday falling on the U.S. presidential inauguration just a few days after the release of three more Israeli hostages, some parade marchers said King’s message of unity and peace speaks louder and resonates deeper today than ever before.
“It’s by design,” Fields said of the timing of events. “It’s by God’s design. He’s saying don’t give up. We should call on His name, we should not give up.”
In his 65th year of participating in MLK parades, Eric Rubin marched underneath a “Free Palestine” banner with Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish organization.
Rubin said he carried his first anti-Zionist sign when he was five years old after his father—who believed Jews should fight all oppression—worked as a reporter at the Nuremberg war crime trials in Germany after WWII.
Rubin said pointing people’s focus towards MLK’s efforts for peace from decades ago can help bring about similar peace today during the present conflict between Israel and Palestine.
“As much as [MLK] was a man of peace, he was a man of struggle,” he said. “On this day, in the spirit of Martin Luther King [Jr.], we should all struggle for liberation.”
After the parade ended, participants gathered in the Martin Luther King Jr. Multipurpose Center at Citizens Park. Long introduced the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Florida board members before Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward thanked everyone for attending, and Ministries of Expressive Song and Dance performed.
“You could have been at home in the comfort of your living room watching the news or something like that, but you’re not,” Ward said. “You walked about a mile and a half in the cold. You are out bending the moral arc of the universe when it matters. …Here in Gainesville, we take it seriously. And we’re here to celebrate Dr. King’s birthday again this year.”
The Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Florida will continue hosting events throughout the year focused on carrying out MLK Jr.’s mission.
Editor’s note: Josiah Walls Well was the first African American to serve on the Gainesville City Commission as the Gainesville Mayor during the Reconstruction era following the Civil War and Neil Butler was the first African American, elected to the Gainesville City Commission in 1969, in the post-Reconstruction era. Thomas Coward was the first African American to be elected to the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners in 1974.
