Denver's MLK Day Marade Really a Charade

Yesterday the annual “celebration” of Martin Luther King’s life took place here in Denver, CO. Denver has the largest “celebration” every year calling it a “Marade” which indicates it’s a march and parade combined.
The event draws thousands of community members every year who are given placards and posters with MLK’s image and words on them. Of course the phrase “I have a dream” is prevalent on both the professionally made materials and the personally created ones.
For the past few years there’s been an increasing number of the Denver metropolitan area’s community that has grown disenchanted with the Marade. The name has been changed to “the charade”.
Marade organizers were recently interviewed in the business section of the Denver Post about the group of citizens that have spoken out about the Marade’s corporate sponsorship. The sponsors include State Farm Insurance and the Denver Department of Safety (Denver Police Department and Denver Fire Department).
The organizer spokesperson stated they felt the group challenging the corporate sponsorship was being “divisive” and unrealistic. The Marade couldn’t carry on being as large and successful without corporate sponsorship he said. The ending paragraph of the article quoted the spokesperson saying if Marade organizers could do without the sponsorship, “believe me we would”.
So, the Marade went on as planned with the corporate sponsors having a high profile from the park where it began to the civic center where it ended. Music, speeches and dignitaries were all part of the “celebration”. Both major newspapers in Denver had front page headlines and photos of the Marade. The stories were a series of quotes from local black citizens, liberals and progressives and politicians. They spoke about the frigid weather conditions and touched upon the failure of the American society to achieve the many facets of Martin’s “dream”.
The newspapers failed to mention the small group of “divisive” citizens who felt the Marade failed to honor Dr. King’s legacy by accepting sponsors that have a long history of failing the communities of color. The small group challenged the Marade organizers to speak out against the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They challenged the organizers to make the connection of faltering social programs to the billions spent on the wars. They challenged the organizers to speak out about the incarceration rates of young black and Hispanic males. They challenged the organizers to demand better educational and occupational opportunities for marginalized communities. They challenged the organizers to quit celebrating a “dream” that has continued just that, a dream. Meanwhile the nightmare of poverty and racism continues in this country and this nation.
Yesterday General Motors ran a full page ad in both papers to “honor” Dr. King and in the process advertise itself and contributions made to the “struggle” by GM.
Meanwhile GM continues to outsource jobs to foreign nations using “slave” labor to manufacture many of their parts. Meanwhile GM continues to ignore the overt poverty in the city of Detroit where it has long had corporate headquarters. GM is an example of the charade that has taken place here in Denver’s annual Marade.
I suggest the dissent against the Marade is valid and that it is indeed a charade. We need only look at the sponsors that the organizers would do without if they could. State Farm is one of the major insurers under indictment in the New Orleans area for attempts to deny coverage for Katrina survivors. One of the ways the insurer has attempted to deny coverage has been putting pressure on adjusters and inspectors to determine damages were primarily caused by water.
If the evaluation of destroyed homes was attributed to water, the majority of claims could be denied by State Farm and others since water damage is excluded in most cases.
The memory of black Americans abandoned on highway overpasses and at the Super Dome is still fresh in most minds of the citizens of New Orleans displaced all around the nation and still waiting to return to their devastated homes. State Farm Insurance has not endeared itself in New Orleans more than two years after Hurricane Katrina hit the city and surrounding region.
Maybe State Farm thinks sponsoring the Marade makes up for the callous disregard of Katrina survivors, most who are people of color. Maybe State Farm sponsorship is good enough for Denver Marade organizers to forget the fraudulent behavior in insurance coverage for Katrina survivors. It’s questionable if Dr. King would consider State Farm an ally of black Americans or any marginalized American he so eloquently spoke in support of being part of his dream.
We have to question why Marade organizers would think so.
Sponsorship by the Denver Department of Safety for the Marade is an affront to all marginalized communities that have borne the brunt of police harassment and brutality. Denver Police Department’s record of complaints has been one of the worst in the nation. The Denver Police Department ranks in the top five for shootings of minority citizens. There have been several high profile lethal shootings that in review could have been prevented. Discipline of responsible officers hasn’t included felony charges or time in prison. The harshest disciplinary action has been suspension and pay loss for less than six months time.
We have to question why the Marade organizers would think sponsorship by a police department with such a record of oppressive actions toward the communities of color is appropriate. We have to wonder about the great irony of organizations like the police and fire departments being part of a celebration for Dr. King who constantly faced thug policemen, police dogs and fire hoses. Marade organizers don’t seem to have the same questions.
The final quote of the spokesperson for the Marade seemed to show the organizers do have doubts about the sponsors but chose to accept the money anyway in order to have the “largest” MLK Day event in the nation. It seems questionable whether Dr. King would approve of such a compromise.
One bright light in today’s Rocky Mountain News were the words of State Representative Terrance Carroll of Denver.
I decided this morning while I was marching in the Marade that I would put aside my notes and just speak from the heart, because there are some issues that were raised over the weekend that I didn't include in my talk for today and some issues that came to mind while I was in the Marade that I think are quite important.
"Every year I stand here and I make some vain attempt to try to sound inspirational and try to cajole you and challenge you to be better legislators, for all of us to be a better legislative body in honor of Dr. King's dream, in honor of Dr. King's vision. And each year I come here and I try to do this in a fashion that's challenging and yet non-confrontational. But as I was in the Marade today and as I watched my TV this weekend, I decided that the non-confrontational, slight-challenging, slight-cajoling thing is probably offensive, really, to the memory and to the legacy of Dr. King, especially considering all the challenges that we face in this nation and in this state: from the war in Iraq; to the fact that in this state more than 60 percent of our students of color do not graduate from high school within four years; from the fact that in a state where only four percent of the total population is African American yet 25 percent of our prison population consists of African American men and African American women, it seemed to be improper and inappropriate at this time to stand before you and say that Dr. King's dream has meant a great deal to all of us.
And then I read a story just this weekend about a young woman who survived Hurricane Katrina - a young African American woman. And there's an oral history project that's being conducted right now by the University of Pennsylvania regarding this. And one of the historians questioned this young lady in her new home in Houston Texas and she was asked, 'What are your dreams for your children? What are your dreams for your future?' And her response was, 'I don't dream anymore because I do not want to be disappointed.'
How can we celebrate this holiday in all honesty, and march and get up and shout and sing songs when the truth of the matter is, this woman is not alone. There are far too many people in this country who don't dream anymore. They don't have hopes. They don't have aspirations. They just find despair, they just find apathy, and they just find hatred.
So we're in a situation now, at this particular hour, at this particular time, where I find myself unable to stand here and say, "I have a dream" or to sing We Shall Overcome, or to sing the Negro National Anthem and to sing Lift Every Voice and Sing, because there's too much work for us that has to be done, and that work can't be done when we spend the King holiday based on our own vain need to slap ourselves on our backs and say what a great job we've done in the time since April 4, 1968, when Dr. King was assassinated on a balcony of the Lorraine Hotel. In fact, I find it quite offensive that each year during this time that we think that everything's been brushed under the carpet, under the rug and that everything in this country's just hunky-dory. It's not.
We spend $3 billion a week on the war in Iraq. No matter how you feel about the war that's an awful lot of money to spend, period. So I think that as we celebrate this holiday, on this day, we have more a moral obligation to search our souls, to ask ourselves, like the writer of the Book of Micah, in Chapter 6:8, when he asks the rhetorical question, 'What does the Lord require of us? To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with the Lord Our God.'"
Terrance Carroll understands the disgruntlement of the “divisive group” who also fail to see the reasoning of the Marade’s organizers to celebrate. I don’t know how he feels about the commercialization of the event but his eloquence seems to indicate he’s probably not much of a fan of it either. Representative Carroll should be commended for his refreshing honesty.

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
USMC combat veteran
Vietnam (’67-’69)
Denver VVAW member