An injured shoulder didn't stop Cynthia Mingo from marching in the King Celebration Annual Commemorative March Monday afternoon.
Mingo, a retired fourth-grade teacher, made the two-mile walk from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Gardens to the Martin Luther King Jr. Multi Purpose Center carrying a portrait of the civil rights leader, despite having undergone surgery on her arm last week.
“You can’t let a little something like that hold you back,” she said.
The event, which attracted between 3,000 and 4,000 people, was reminiscent of the marches of the civil rights movement that Mingo participated in as a young adult.
Mingo has attended the annual celebration since it was established in 1980.
The celebration was established by Alachua County Commissioner Rodney J. Long, then a student at UF.
Five years later, Long established the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Florida Inc., an organization that seeks to preserve the legacy of its namesake.
“We’re trying to change the mindsets of people,” he said. “We have worked on it, we work on it now, and we will continue to work on it.”
Long, whose mother was involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, recalled growing up during the integration of public schools.
“People shunned you,” he said. “They didn’t want to sit next to you in the cafeteria or in class.”
The march attracted a diverse crowd: Toddlers pushed in strollers, older adults, college students and blacks and whites alike all lined University Avenue to celebrate King.
Earlier on Monday, the commission presented the Hall of Fame Award Memorial Tribute, a program to honor those who have fought for civil rights.
The comission honored Daniel Harmeling, a part-time teacher at Santa Fe College and Bethune-Cookman University’s Gainesville campus.
As a student at UF in the 1960s, Harmeling and his late twin brother Jim were arrested and put on academic probation for participating in sit-ins and protests.
These echoes of the past, alongside Monday’s events, serve as a reminder to future generations of the importance of King’s dream.
“It’s not an event that is done for the black community,” Long said. “It’s an event to recognize a national hero.”
