If the Unity Group which had sponsored local Martin Luther King Jr. parades for 46 years felt used and put upon when details didn’t perfectly fall into line for this year’s event, group members nevertheless should have accepted the city’s offer of help, hosted the parade as usual, then sat down with city officials in the coming weeks to air their grievances.
As it is, the group looked exclusionary and un-King-like – and hardly lived up to its name – when declaring it would not host, participate in or endorse Monday’s parade, which the city offered to make happen after the group canceled the parade Friday.
In return for the offer, the Unity Group said the city was orchestrating “a deliberate and hostile takeover” of the parade and called it a “despicable authoritarian and totalitarian tactic.”
The city, with an offer to secure barricades and whatever additional items were needed, just wanted what “is an important event for so many in Chattanooga” to go on as planned.
Fortunately, hundreds were able to march in the sunny but frigid weather down North Moore Road to Brainerd High School, the route city officials said the Unity Group had planned, and celebrate the life of the civil rights leader.