As people lined streets to celebrate a champion of equality, volunteers worked the crowd to register them to vote.
By TOM ZUCCO
Published January 20, 2004
Martin Luther King Jr. Day coverage in today's Times Drawing on art to find the harmony inside us all By MARY JO MELONE Rain clouds were forming overhead, and people were setting up food tables and chairs along the street where the Martin Luther King Jr. parade would later march, when my friend Tony Collins and I entered St. Petersburg's Straub Park. Wake up and spread King's word to children By ERNEST HOOPER Every year, the Tampa Organization of Black Affairs has its annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Breakfast on the King holiday at 6:45 a.m. Breaking bread and barriers By COLLEEN JENKINS A moment to honor a civil rights hero brings together blacks and whites sharing a dream and a meal on a cold and rainy day. Signing up for the dream By TOM ZUCCO As people lined streets to celebrate a champion of equality, volunteers worked the crowd to register them to vote. King's job is still far from done By MOLLY MOORHEAD At a rural church, everyday folks were reminded they need to act on his behalf. Some fear King's message gets lost By MEGAN SCOTT When pressed, some children enjoying festivities and a day off school don't always know who, or why, they are celebrating. Bright hopes under cloudy skies By JARED GOLDBERG-LEOPOLD St. Petersburg's 19th parade shows that residents will turn out to honor King even when the outlook's dreary. Some snub Bush speech at FAMU By Associated Press TALLAHASSEE - About a dozen students walked out Monday before Gov. Jeb Bush gave a Martin Luther King Jr. Day address at historically black Florida A&M University. Pointed calls for peace mark King Day By Associated Press ATLANTA - Americans observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday with some activists charging that the war in Iraq runs counter to what the civil rights leader stood for.
ST. PETERSBURG - It was drizzling, the applications were blowing off the metal folding table, and most people who streamed past either smiled politely and moved on or saw what she was doing and quickly looked away.
Yet Jeanie Blue would not be denied.
She stands just under 5-feet-tall, and in her black pants and yellow I Have A Dream T-shirt, she worked the corner of Eighth Street and Central Avenue like a hummingbird in a field of flowers.
Her mission during Monday's Martin Luther King Day parade was to register as many people as possible to vote.
Her table was one of several set up along the parade route by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The effort included assistance for people who want to get their voting rights restored after serving prison time.
Florida has a population of about 17-million. Of those, nearly 3-million are African-American. And of those, about 1-million are registered voters.
"That's good, but we need more," said Blue, 45, a divorced mother of three who works as a case manager for a private social services agency. "You can't bring about change unless you get involved, and you can't really get involved unless you vote.
"Each one, teach one. That's an old African proverb. And that's why I'm here."
She smiled, opened her umbrella and stepped again into the river of people.
"Happy King Day!" she called out, followed by, "Are you registered to vote?"
Blue and her team of volunteers had their patch of sidewalk covered. She worked the sidewalk, and Justin Clarke, 16, and Louisa Powell, 17, stood at the table and tried to snare people Blue had missed.
At times, business was painfully slow. But the volunteers kept trying.
"I can't just be in the parade," said Powell, an honor student at St. Petersburg High. "I was placed in a shelter when I was 6, then I went to a foster home, and then I got adopted when I was 11. This is my chance to give something back.
"So many young people have a disadvantage, but it's not too late to change things."
A group of young men passed the table, and Powell called out to them. Were they registered, she asked.
"He's not," one of them said, playfully pointing to Dwayne Jenkins. Two of the young men pushed Jenkins forward. He smiled meekly and tried to find an excuse.
"I haven't gotten around to registering yet," he said.
Powell was ready. "We have the forms right here," she said, holding up a stack of paper. "Take one with you."
Jenkins, 23, took the paper and headed down the sidewalk with his friends. They poked at him and laughed. After a few feet, he passed a garbage can. He glanced at it, then looked down at the form. He folded it and slipped it into his pocket.
"I think I will send it in," he said. "I never felt like a part of the process. Like it made any difference. But you can talk about how bad things are all day, and nothing gets done.
"Maybe it's time to try another way."
By the time the parade ended about three hours later, the volunteers on Eighth Street had signed up close to a dozen people and had handed out hundreds of fliers and applications.
"My feet hurt and my voice is a little weak," Blue said, "but when you're doing it, you don't feel the pain. It helps that I was a cheerleader in high school.
"But it was a good day," she added. "It really was. We could have had more, sure, and I'd like to see more eagerness on the part of the masses. We'd like to see people get more excited.
"But you just can't save everybody."
Election dates
Presidential preference primary: March 9; voter registration deadline, Feb. 9.
Primary election: Aug. 31; voter registration deadline, Aug. 2.
General election: Nov. 2, voter registration deadline, Oct. 4.
