BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Sunday celebration and remembrance at Burlington City Hall.
It was to remember slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The keynote speaker was James Perkins – the first Black mayor of Selma, Alabama, a city in the center of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1965, it was the start off the 55 mile march to Montgomery, where Martin Luther King led the protest. Perkins was a boy at the time.
“Cause the same little Black boy that would hide under the bed of his grandmother when the clan would parade through our neighborhoods, that same little Black boy would become mayor of that city,” Perkins said.
Perkins says there is more to be done. He says when America puts the rights of people, before what is best for special interest. He called it. ‘Making America Right Again.’