Charleston Mayor Sedrick Smith announced Friday afternoon that the city's 15th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade has been moved from Sunday to Monday to avoid potentially nasty weather.
The parade will get underway at 1 p.m.
Smith said the Mississippi Valley State University marching band will still participate, as planned.
"I have confirmed with the band director," said Smith.
Charleston's MLK Day parade, which is always held on the third Monday of January to coincide with the national holiday, had been moved up to Sunday this year to enable the MVSU band to attend. That band had prior commitments for Monday.
However, with rain and possibly snow forecast for Saturday night into Sunday morning, Smith contacted the band director and found that the 110-member "Mean Green Marching Machine" would be able to attend if Charleston's parade were moved to Monday due to weather considerations.
For more information about the parade or participating in it, contact the mayor at 662-647-4171, Carolyn Johnson at 647-1346 or Lillie Smith at 625-2055.
Monday’s festivities, and similarly styled celebrations across the United States, are a part of the federal holiday begun in 1986 to observe King’s birthday each year on the third Monday of January, which is around the time of his actual birthday, Jan. 15.
King, who once came to Charleston as part of his work for nonviolent activism and social reform during the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. He was 39 years old. The Lorraine is now part of the National Civil Rights Museum.
