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MLK Jr. Day parade set for Saturday in Carrollton
By Dan Eakin, deakin@starlocalnews.com
The 16th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade will take place Saturday morning in Carrollton.
The parade will start at 10 a.m. on Jamestown Street behind Carrollton City Hall, and proceed west to Josey Lane, south on Josey Lane to Keller Springs, east on Keller Springs to Kelly Boulevard, and then south on Kelley Boulevard to end at Ted Polk Middle School, located at 2001 Kelley Blvd.
A program, featuring singing and speeches, will take place inside the middle school following the parade.
The parade is sponsored by Christ Community Connections, in partnership with the city of Carrollton.
Willie Rainwater, president of Christ Community Connections, noted that black people have a rich heritage in Carrollton.
He noted that Carrollton became a city in 1913, and is celebrating 100 years as a city this year.
“Carrollton did not become a city until 1913,” Rainwater said, “but there were black people in the area in the 1800s.”
In the early 1960s, Rainwater’s mother, Annie Rainwater, filed suit to allow black children to attend Carrollton schools. Annie Heads Rainwater Elementary School on Frankford Road is named in her honor.
Richard Fleming, the first black member of the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD school board, will be grand marshal for the parade.
Fleming lives in Carrollton and serves as a school board trustee for the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, as school board secretary. He was first elected to serve on the school board May 2009 and is currently in his second term.
A lifelong resident of the Carrollton-Farmers Branch area, he attended Valwood Elementary now (Montgomery Elementary) and Vivian Field Middle school in Farmers Branch where he grew up. He is a 1986 graduate of R.L. Turner High in Carrollton. He later attended Cameron University in Lawton, Okla., on a football scholarship.
He was a member of Cameron University 1988 NAIA Division I Football National Championship team. In 2008, his national championship team was inducted into the Cameron University Hall of Fame.
Last April, Fleming was inducted into the R.L. Turner High School Inaugural Hall of Fame as a Distinguished Alumni. He currently is raising seven nieces and nephews, five of which now attend C-FBISD schools, with the two oldest attending junior college.
Jan 21 is the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., with the parade taking place two days earlier in Carrollton.
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