‘Together’ the theme for Martin Luther King Jr. march in Eugene

It was billed both as a march and a celebration, so it was fitting that some participants in the Martin Luther King Jr. march danced the “Cha Cha Slide” before starting the trek to downtown Eugene.

More than 500 people joined the Monday, Jan. 19 event, which was organized by the Eugene-Springfield NAACP to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The march started in front of Autzen Stadium and ended at The Shedd Institute on East Broadway, where the NAACP hosted a celebration with speeches and musical performances.

The organization’s theme for the day, “Together: Together We Can. Together We Will. Together We Are United,” was palpable throughout the event. 

“We’re here to be in unity,” Jocelyn Sanchez, 35, of Eugene, told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “Especially now more than ever it’s important that we are unified.”

Sanchez, who is a first-generation Mexican American, attended the march with her 12-year-old son, Abram. She said she was leading by example. 

“Given our current circumstances right now, this is the right thing to do, to be together supporting one another and loving one another,” she said. 

Royce Daniels, 37, said his parents lived through segregation and taught him to pay homage to the people who fought for him. Daniels, who grew up in Cincinnati, recalled his great aunt telling him that, when she was in school, Black students had swimming class on the last period on Friday so the school could drain the pool before white students swam on Mondays. 

“Sometimes I feel like a lot of events that happen to remember the history of Black folks, they don’t truly capture what happened to us and why we feel the way that we do,” said Daniels, who lives in Eugene.

“But, I think at the end of the day, America could be so much more together if they just knew their neighbor,” he said. “It’s like, the better you know somebody, the harder it is to hate them.”

Kodjo Wilder, who attended the march with his kids, said the event is a symbolic step. 

“But now that voices are coming together, how do we continue the conversation and then move the conversation into action?” said Wilder, 39, of Eugene. “When you think about who King was and what his legacy is, how do we step up? How do we teach our kids? How do we move forward together and show up when it matters?”

Camille Cioffi walked in the march with her husband, Ian Nelson, and their kids, Royce, 4, and Nia, 6. Nia carried a sign she made that read, “Peace” and “We make things better.” 

“We’re just really happy to be here in community,” Cioffi, 35, of Eugene, said. “When everything is so exhausting it’s just nice to be together.”

NAACP board president Demond Hawkins said there was a great turnout for the march, which represented the first time Eugene and Springfield have combined their separate MLK Day events into one affair. The NAACP also partnered with the local immigrant community in recognizing “Day Without an Immigrant.”

Hawkins told Lookout that the turnout “says a lot that people care about what’s going on, and they care about the civil rights of people in their community. And it shows that we’re not alone. We are really united and together on these things.”

In her opening remarks at The Shedd, NAACP interim executive director Deborah Lange-Reynolds said the word “together” is not just poetic, it’s powerful. 

“It’s a call to action,” she said to a packed auditorium. “It’s a reminder that our shared humanity binds us stronger than the forces that try to divide us.”

Lange-Reynolds, who grew up in the Eugene-Springfield area, spoke of her childhood and recalled people protesting because her family, a Black family, moved into their neighborhood. She recalled seeing three dolls hanging in a tree by a noose representing her and her sisters. 

“It scared us,” she said. 

But she also spoke of neighbors who rose up and said “not here, not in this neighborhood.”

“I witnessed my parents, my community, the ones that surrounded us with love remind us of who we were,” Lange-Reynolds said. “Reminded us to be proud of who we were.”

She talked about the work the Eugene-Springfield NAACP is doing at its new location in the Clear Lake Community Center, including a food pantry, mentorship programs for students and a Healthcare Pathways program for students interested in careers in the medical field.  

“We have DEI being canceled, civil rights movements being rolled back, our history being erased, our truth being spun, and while we’re fighting that, we’re also having to fight a war with one who wants to see the end, the demise, of people of color,” Lange-Reynolds said. “But our community is in need.”