Sunday, January 19, 2025–6:10 p.m.

-David Crowder, WRGA News-

Rome and Floyd County’s four-day celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. concludes Monday in Downtown Rome.

The Freedom March will make its way up Broad Street beginning at 11:30.

Participants are asked to meet at the corner of Broad and First Avenue at 11 o’clock.

“We will march up Broad where we will meet at the Rome City Auditorium,” said Alvin Jackson with the local King Commission. “We have a great speaker for the program that day–and I think all of you know him very well—Michael Thurmond, past CEO of DeKalb County. So, he will be our keynote speaker and he is a wonderful speaker. Immediately following that, we have our fellowship lunch. This is where everybody in the community comes together to have fellowship and a lunch.”

The lunch will be held at the Rome Civic Center on Jackson Hill.

“I think all can agree that Dr. King is one of the greatest leaders of our time,” Jackson added. “He laid something on my heart and he did so much for me—watching him on TV and some of the things he went through, from the Birmingham Jail to being spit on and the marches he had. That’s why I love to march because that was the tool he used in a non-violent way.”

Again, the Freedom March starts at 11:30 on Monday.

Everyone is encouraged to bundle up, because it will be cold.