MLK’s Frankfort anniversary march sees a pledge for progress, but will GOP listen? | Opinion

A multiracial, multi-aged crowd followed Martin Luther King Jr.’s path to the Kentucky Capitol 60 years to the day on Tuesday, and they made one thing very clear.

The mostly white men in the Kentucky General Assembly’s GOP supermajority will not be allowed to turn back time to the bad old days, no matter how many laws they pass that ban diversity, hurt poor people or try to cancel the teaching of our history.

“It’s very ironic they’re trying to reverse the things we marched for and achieved,” said Kevin Russell of Radcliffe, the chairman of the MLK State Commission. “The supermajority will not allow us to move forward. And they do it with a smile. How can you take things that shaped our lives and say they never happened?”

Russell was referring to last year’s attacks on critical race theory, and this year’s salvo on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, in which acknowledging racism or trying to do anything about it is a “divisive concept” that has no place in our schools.

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King’s March on Frankfort 60 years ago — made up of 10,000 protesters — led to the Kentucky Civil Rights Act of 1966, the first one passed in the South, passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Edward “Ned” Breathitt.

Tuesday’s event, organized by Frankfort’s Focus on Race Relations, was focused on unity and brought hundreds marching.

“We hope we can stop fighting, find common ground and learn to accept one another,” said organizer Kristie Powe. She called the current state of politics in Frankfort “sad.”

“We hope the love we exhibit today will help them understand that love is always more powerful.”

Billed as a nonpolitical event, things quickly turned political with Gov. Andy Beshear marching at the front of the line, fresh from a Louisville ceremony in which he vetoed House Bill 18, which would stop Lexington and Louisville in their attempts to stop landlords from discriminating against housing vouchers.

“Racism exists to this day and it’s our job to stop it,” Beshear said. He admitted that while he could not truly understand systemic racism, “I am committed to listening. Folks, I’m about ready in this session to veto a lot of discriminatory bills.”

The line got huge applause, even though those vetoes may be empty victories, given the General Assembly’s veto-proof supermajorities in both houses.

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It’s hard to see where compromise can happen when two sides see things so differently. No Republican legislators were on the dais with Beshear and it didn’t seem as though there were any in the crowd, even though 60 years later, most Republicans will admit King was onto something in trying to erase legal segregation. It’s the King’s other ideas — diversity and inclusion, helping the poor or even saying that racism is systemic — that appear suspect to them.

“Sixty years ago, we were fighting for freedom, and right now, there are legislators trying to take away the things we fought for,” said Rep. Keturah Herron, D-Louisville. “Today, they are criminalizing homelessness and taking away SNAP benefits.”

Herron said she hoped the many students at the March on Tuesday would be inspired by King to make change on their own.

Sixty years ago, one of those children watching was Rep. Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort. A friend’s father picked up the two 5-year-olds from kindergarten and took them to the March. “He said, ‘look at all those people. History is going to be made,’” Graham recalled. “He was right.

“The opportunities I’ve been given come from those who came before me,” he continued. “We need to continue to fight to make sure we don’t go back.”