Deborah Ponder grew up under segregation in a small Missouri farming town.
Unlike many of those participating in Denton's Martin Luther King Jr. Day march on Monday, she lived through integration and saw how King's work shaped the country.
"I remember, as a little girl, the change that he made in my life," said Ponder, 54, during a lull in the march from the University of North Texas to the recreation center in Southeast Denton that bears King's name. "I lived through the transition."
Ponder is the graduate adviser for the Epsilon Mu Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, which organized the march. She was especially impressed by the diversity of the crowd, which included college students and older residents of various races.
"This is just beautiful," she said.
A group of mostly college students left the University of North Texas Union Building on Monday afternoon and marched about 2 miles to the American Legion Senior Center on Lakey Street, where other residents joined them for the remaining half-mile to the King center. The event ended there with a program and dinner sponsored by the NAACP's Denton chapter and local churches.
Students today benefit from the work of those who fought for integration, said Shannon Raymond, vice president of the sorority chapter. UNT started admitting black students in 1956 following a federal court order.
"This [march] is just to remember how we were able to come be students at the university and to get a taste for how hard people worked to give us these rights," Raymond said before the march began.
King was a leading figure in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s before his assassination in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn. He was 39.
Other leaders share credit for the country's progress on civil rights, but King is remarkable for accomplishing so much in so little time, said Forest Turner Jr., a former president of UNT's Omega Psi Phi Fraternity chapter.
"He trailblazed the path of justice in only 13 years," Turner told the crowd outside the UNT Union. "Don't let them tell you you're too young or inexperienced to make a difference."
Monday wrapped up a two-day celebration of King's life and legacy. Denton residents paid tribute Saturday with a parade, candlelight vigil, gospel music and other activities.
LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com.
