Bush remembers court battles, the KKK

GAINESVILLE - The woman who was a driving force in establishing the annual King Day March in Gainesville 40 years ago paused last Monday to reflect on last four decades... especially the tough going in those early days.

Faye Bush remembers the court battles and counter-protests by the KKK her group had to go overcome just to stage the march... which began several years before Martin Luther King Junior Day became a national holiday. It has been held each year for the past 40 years, usually starting at the corner of what is now E.E. Butler Parkway (named for a prominent African-American doctor in Gainesville) and ending at the Butler Center on Athens Highway for a rally honoring the memory of Dr. King.

The march is sponsored by the Newtown Florist Club which began in the 1950s to help provide flowers and meals for families in the Newtown section of Gainesville in time of sickness or death. Bush is its Executive Director. Over the years, though, it has grown into the preeminent social justice organization in town... focusing in recent years on "environmental justice," fighting to get government officials from Washington to Atlanta to Gainesville to recognize what it believes is a connection between the industrial area that borders Newtown and some of the illnesses that are taking their toll on Newtown residents.

Bush is still right in the middle of the planning of the MLK Day march each year. And, while the lot of blacks has changed greatly here just as it has all over the country in the past four decades, Bush told The Local Hour on WDUN NEWS TALK 550 last Monday Dr. King's "dream" has not been completely fulfilled and there is still "a long way to go," but she was quick to add "I still think we'll get there."