Keep moving forward. That’s the message. We’re just days away now for the 42nd annual Martin Luther King Junior parade, one of the largest cultural celebrations to take place along Harbor Drive. And this year’s celebration has some new attractions. Joining us live, Alpha Phi Alpha, brother and president of the San Diego Alpha Foundation.
Andre Mitchell. Thank you for being with us today. Andre. Thank you for having us. No, of course. Yeah. So we’re excited for Sunday. Uh There’s a lot that’s gonna be happening. This uh tell us about that. What can we expect? Yes. Thank you for that. Um Usually we’ve done a parade.
We’ve been doing it for over four decades, but this year we’re adding the five K. We’re adding a harmony health festival. So you can actually come down with your family. Stay for the parade, do the five K in the morning, do the parade in the midday and then stay for the festival.
I love it. You wanna make it an all day event? Why not? Yes. Yeah, we’re down there. We’ve, we have all the, the city and county and ports uh uh approved. So might as well get the most out of it, get the most out of the day,
Bring people together uh families obviously all welcome uh to come celebrate. Tell us the importance of having this parade, the celebration for Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. Sure. Um You know, years ago when this parade first started, it was established with the approval of the King family
Just to promote and respect and appreciate the legacy of Doctor Martin Luther King, who is a member of uh my fraternity, I file fraternity Incorporated. Um This year we thought, you know, we wanted to expand and evolve just like MLK did and talk about health and the importance of health.
So we added the health element with our partners at the Harmony Health Festival and the five K so people can come down and run and get their sweat going and you know, get the door. Yeah, promote that healthiness. Uh Let’s talk about your background as well.
How long have you been active in planning this? Uh Obviously, you said you’re a member of the Alphas. Tell us about that. Yes. So I’ve been here since 2015, been a member since 1995. Um So, since I’ve been here, I’ve been a part of the parade as a consumer um as a volunteer.
Um But as a planner, I’d say probably about five years, but the parade itself, um our local chapter has been involved since 1986 planning this return. It started in a local community neighborhood. And then we thought, you know, due to our leadership, Doctor Matthews, he said,
Let’s expand this to the whole city, to the whole community. So we moved it downtown so we can get more people involved in the community. And you said more than 100 will be involved in the actual parade itself. Yeah, you’ll see, uh, you know, close to 100 and 50
Floats, marching bands, schools, community service, uh the military, the law enforcement will be there. Uh We got great sponsors. I’d like to just shout out the Office of Equity and Racial Justice, Sony, uh San Diego City, the San Diego City firefighters, local 145 Milgard uh Rady Children’s Hospital.
So we got tons of community support this year, more than ever come to this event. And I believe images too of Martin Luther King as an alpha with the alphas, uh which I do wanna show our viewers that.
But uh for you being an alpha, what does this organization mean to you? And obviously having uh Doctor Martin Luther King a member as well. Sure. Um A lot of uh Martin Luther King’s initiatives were aligned with the fraternity of uh fraternity. You know, he required everyone to be registered to vote,
You know, to join the NAACP, to actually have that, that civic awareness, that ability to advocate for your community while promoting leadership scholarship and brotherhood. So that drew me to the fraternity. I found out later he was already in the fraternity. So just
AAA honor to be in that organization knowing that he was part of it as well. And on Sunday, when you see the masses of San Diegans coming together, people from all over coming for this, uh, describe that feeling. What’s it like?
I mean, you’re part of putting this all together and bringing everyone together. Yeah. It, it fills your cup just to see the community. You know, I’ve met friends, I’ve made friends at this event, you know, just while you’re out there doing the work,
Our volunteers will show up early and they’ll put this whole thing together, including the five K and then at the end when you’re cleaning up, you just, you know, exhale, but, you know, you put in a good day’s work.
But I also want to call out the fact that the day before the day after there’s opportunities to serve in the spirit of what Doctor Martin Luther King stood for and our very own Kirsten Nomes will be the MC on Sunday too. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Thank you.
We’ll be right back after this quick break. We’ll have a check of your headlines and your forecast. Stay right here.
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