Please join Tracie and me on Monday, January 15 for the NAACP Martin Luther King, Jr. Day March in Orange, Texas.

We will be meeting at Solomon Johnson Park at the corner of 2nd St. and Turrett Ave. at 12:30 p.m. for line-up. March will begin at 1:00 p.m.

Following the March, Tracie and I will be organizing a protest at the Confederate memorial at the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. and Interstate-10 (northwest corner). We are tentatively planning to meet at 3 p.m. and will stay there until sunset.

Here’s my email address if you need more info and/or want to coordinate a ride to Orange for the march and protest.

Yesterday evening the president of Southeast Texas Progressives Louis Ackerman and I met with the local chapter of the NAACP in Orange. Among the action items on our agenda, we discussed our family’s ongoing efforts to repurpose the Confederate memorial being built in Orange by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Texas Division. I’m happy to report that its board gave us its blessing in continuing our fight.

I’ve been researching the origins of the monument and I’ve discovered that the story behind the site is much more complicated than meets the eye. I’ll be writing about the memorial in coming weeks as more pieces in the puzzle come into focus. Please stay tuned: I’m confident that many readers will be surprised by what I’ve found.

The bottom line: despite what many have written and what many believe, ORANGE RESIDENTS DO NOT WANT THIS MONUMENT AND THEY WANT IT REPURPOSED. That’s all I can reveal at the moment…

PLEASE JOIN THE PARZEN FAMILY AT THE MARCH ON MONDAY AND PLEASE MEET US AT THE MONUMENT SITE AFTERWARDS FOR OUR PROTEST. WE ARE ENCOURAGING PROTESTERS TO USE QUOTES FROM MLK FOR THEIR SIGNS. WE WILL BRING EXTRA SIGNS FOR MARCHERS AND PROTESTERS. PLEASE SEE THE NAACP FLIER BELOW. HAPPY MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY!

Top image via Wikipedia Creative Commons. Lower image courtesy of the NAACP Orange Branch 6211.