Tag: Bill King

Last week, Mayor Sylvester Turner said the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade backed by his administration will unite Houston’s diverse population and properly honor King’s legacy. And the parade organization that is not being backed by the city has chosen Turner’s two mayoral opponents as its co-grand marshals. Though Stamps insisted that he weighed Buzbee and King’s “contributions to humanity” over their political ambitions, he appeared irritated with Turner’s decision to make the Black Heritage Society’s Original MLK, Jr. “And I hope that the people will honor the decision and we will come together ... as a community, as a city of all backgrounds, all faith, all ethnicities, and that we will come and stand as one.” Last July, he said residents have stayed home because they are frustrated by the feud and do not want to choose one parade over the other. Houston firefighters “have always been a staple of our parade productions,” Stamps said when asked about Lancton’s appointment. “We are going to celebrate a parade like we’ve never celebrated before,” Brown said, adding that Turner told him and Duncantell he wanted to make the parade the largest in the nation. Designated an official city event for the first time in its four-decade history, the Original MLK, Jr. Parade has received operational support this year from the city’s special events staff. In 1995, Stamps, who had been a heritage society volunteer, formed a new parade foundation to run a separate Houston MLK event, which went on to garner celebrity and corporate support over the years. For years, each would apply for a permit, and the city would allow only one organizer to launch a parade per day.