Peace Groups Protest Armed Color Guard for MLK Vigil

Lake Worth High School’s ROTC color guard has led the candlelight vigil for years

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2913

Palm Beach Post

In 1963, 21-year-old graduate student Vicki Ryder flew across the country to hear the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his now-famous I Have a Dream speech in Washington.

When King was gunned down almost five years later, Ryder said, she was working in Georgia, registering blacks to vote. The civil rights leader had such an effect on her that when her first son was born months later, she took “Mar” from Martin and “K” from King and named her baby boy Joshua Mark.

Now, 39 years later, as Lake Worth prepares to celebrate King Day later this month, Ryder is protesting the annual candlelight march to honor her hero’s memory.

A contingent of uniformed high school students carrying decommissioned military weapons will be leading the Jan. 21 procession – a mockery of King’s message of peace, local peace activists say.”It’s not a day to glorify war,” said Ryder, founder of the local Raging Grannies group. “It’s a day to reflect on peace.”

Lake Worth High School’s ROTC color guard has led the candlelight vigil for years.

Event planner and Vice Mayor Retha Lowe is not a supporter of the Iraq war.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/01/12/s1c_skparade_0112.html

2008-01-12