Thursday, January 16, 2025

Civil rights pioneers and participants to be honored in MLK parade

Alderman Frazier will serve as grand marshal

 

Billie Joe Frazier
Natchez Alderman, Ward 2

NATCHEZ, Miss. -- Natchez Alderman Billie Joe Frazier, Ward 2, will serve as the grand marshal for the Natchez NAACP Dr. MLK Parade on Monday, January 20, announced Jacqueline Marsaw, who chairs the parade committee.

“It is an honor and a pleasure to be named grand marshal for this parade,” said Frazier. “This is an important event. It is very special to me, and I appreciate what it means to our city.”
 
The parade will kick off at 3 p.m., with the line-up beginning at 2 p.m. on Broadway Street on the Bluff. This year’s theme is “Natchez All In.”
 
Prominent names in Black History, such as Medgar Evers and Wharlest Jackson Sr., will be honored in the parade, along with Ida B. Wells-Barnett, whose image now appears on the U.S. quarter.
 
Others who will be honored include Derrick Johnson, president of the National NAACP; Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-C. M. Boxley, former civil rights worker and coordinator of Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society; and Nick Bezzel, founder of the Elmer Geronimo Pratt Pistol & Rifle Gun Club.
 
Marsaw said that one of the highlights of the event will be the “Parchman Living Legends,” the civil rights workers who were arrested on October 2 and 3, 1965, for marching through the streets of Natchez, defying a court ban against marching. This resulted in several hundred of them being arrested.
 
When the local jails became full, the authorities bused 150 of them to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman where they received harsh treatment at the prison. Their experience became known as “The Parchman Ordeal.”
 
The “Parchman Living Legends” will have their own float in the parade, according to Marsaw. Those who were arrested but did not go to Parchman, will also be honored, she said.
 
The parade is especially meaningful to Frazier. In an August 2023 interview, Frazier said that in the 1960s, he was one among many teenagers who participated in the protest marches during the Civil Rights Movement in Natchez. “It all started at the grassroots level,” he said. “We were the young people then who took everything to the forefront.” 
 
Frazier went on to serve in law enforcement. In 2008, he retired as a lieutenant with the Natchez Police Department, where he served for 32 years. Frazier spent three and half years in the Navy. He is serving his ninth year as a member of the Natchez Board of Aldermen.

Marsaw reported a team of nine volunteers with AmeriCorps will assist with the parade. The team, designated as River Five, will be led by Team Leader Craig Kuhnert of AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps).


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Civil rights pioneers and participants to be honored in MLK parade

Alderman Frazier will serve as grand marshal   Billie Joe Frazier Natchez Alderman, Ward 2 NATCHEZ, Miss. -- Natchez Alderman Billie Jo...