Albany MLK Day commemoration set for Jan. 15

ALBANY — On Jan. 1,5 marchers will tread the familiar footsteps leading from Shiloh Baptist Church to Pine Avenue for the ninth celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr holiday recognizing the slain civil rights leader.

The minister who led protests across the country spent parts of 1961 and 1962 in the Dougherty County seat that saw him arrested and ultimately dejected from the experience.

And while there has been debate on whether this effort, meant to desegregate businesses and public facilities in the community, was a failure, the experience in Albany is credited with driving King’s successes later in other communities.

“What we are basically doing is to commemorate the Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday and to shine a light on the continuing issues that were issues in his day for women, for people of color, for other minority groups,” Frank Wilson, an organizer of the annual program, said.

King first came to Albany the same year that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) sent Charles Sherrod and others to southwest Georgia to register black voters. The Albany Movement was formed the same year, a year that was filled with protests, mass meetings, marches and the arrests of hundreds of participants.

King himself later commented that his effort in Albany was a failure because the goal of total desegregation was not accomplished at that time.

While some of this may sound like ancient history to young people today, for Wilson a big goal is getting those people of the younger generation involved.

“We also want to say to our young folks that there are plenty of issues for them to get involved with,” he said. “You can use some of that energy to become involved in community activities that are good instead of creating violence.”

During a December procession of hearses through the city, Dougherty County Coroner Michael Fowler noted that 20 homicides in the city during 2023 were instances of black-on-black violence. In each of those crimes, at least two were impacted, Wilson said, the family of the victim and that of the person who committed the violence.

“We cannot just sit on the sidelines as a community in this,” he said. “We have got to get out there, and there is no better time than Martin Luther King Day.

“Black-on-black issues are not just black issues, they become community issues. When the image of Albany is projected this way, it affects us economically. It’s a communitywide issue.”

But the annual march is not just an event for black residents, because even though desegregation has occurred there are still individuals, both black and white, who still seek profit by keeping the community divided, Wilson said.

“We’ve got to stop that,” he said. “There is still too much divisiveness in Albany, Georgia. You have to have people who are willing to stand outside their comfort zone and not worry about how other people will react. If we can get past the … differences in our skin color, we can get a lot more done.”

On Jan. 15, a program will be held at 11 a.m. at the 325 Whitney Ave. location ahead of the march that begins at noon. A brief stop at the former site of the Greyhound bus station that figured prominently in the civil rights era, now the site of the city’s Transportation Center, is planned. And there may be a stop at the park along the route named in honor of Sherrod.

“We just want folks to come and show some solidarity and show that we can be better, we can do better,” Wilson said. “The bottom line is we want better for our community. That’s why we wanted people of all races, ethnicities, religions and sexual persuasion shining a light on following the footsteps Martin Luther King followed when he was here in 1961 and 1962.”

The first of the marches was organized in 2014 by Henry Mathis, an Albany businessman and former Albany City Commissioner who was a mayoral candidate in the 2023 Albany municipal election, Wilson said. No march was held in 2020 due to COVID-19.

File Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]
File Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]