Love Marches On For 55th Year

Latrice Hampton, Kathy Bridges, Alexis Terry, and Wanda Faison gathered at a Lawrence Street Baptist Church separately but for a common purpose Wednesday — drawn by a place of worship that has been in their families for generations, called by a civil rights icon-honoring ​“love march” that has been in their lives for decades.

Hampton, Bridges, Terry, and Faison were four of roughly 50 New Haveners to show up to Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church at 100 Lawrence St. before 11 a.m. for the church’s latest annual MLK Day Love March.

Founded by George Hampton Sr., the march celebrated its 55th year on Wednesday, according to Hampton’s son, Rev. Kennedy Hampton, Jr. Hampton singled out Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., former President Barack Obama, and his father as ​“change agents” worthy of celebration and remembrance on this and each ​“Love March,” which always takes place on MLK’s birthday. 

Seeking shelter from the blistering cold for a few minutes before the march kicked off, church regulars mingled with elected officials and civic leaders — including Mayor Justin Elicker, State Sen. Gary Winfield, Fire Chief John Alston, City Historian Mike Morand, and Alders Anna Festa, Caroline Tanbee Smith, and Eli Sabin, among others — to reflect on what brings them out, year after year, to the MLK Love March. 

Latrice Hampton, 33, said that her grandfather was the founder of the march. She has been participating in this march for her entire life. To her, the legacy of MLK honored by her grandfather and by this march has taught her to ​“walk in love, speak in love,” in every aspect of her live. ​“I’m here to share the legacy of my grandfather,” she said, and to try to live out the message she tells her students in her job as a cross country coach at Career High School: ​“Be the best version of yourself you can be.”

Sitting at the other end of the church, a portrait of MLK beside her, Kathy Bridges said she has been coming to the Love March for 25 years.

To her, the message of the march and from MLK that stick with her most right now is the imperative of uplifting ​“equality for all people.” Not just one race, she said, but everyone. ​“I like to see us all come together: white, Black, Spanish, foreign, everyone.” The march, and the church, have helped her see that ideal in action.

One pew in front of Bridges sat Alexis Terry. A member of the Unhoused Activists Community Team (U‑ACT), Terry said she had shown up in part to try to find allies for U‑ACT’s efforts advocating for the rights and needs of unhoused New Haveners.

She also said she showed up because Shiloh Baptist Missionary Church was her late grandmother’s church, and she would come here as a kid. This is where she learned to love music. She still thinks fondly of how tightly knit of a community the church was, and is. Now that her grandmother is gone, she’s interested in putting herself back in this environment to see what relationships she can build. ​“This is where the change takes place,” she said about the church, and about the march.

And outside, dressed for the winter weather, and with the Love March’s front banner in her hands, Faison reflected on how she’s been participating in the march since the very beginning. She’s 61, the march is 55. Their lives have run in parallel. She spoke of how important it is to her to march on the actual birthday of MLK, and not just on the federally designated holiday, which is this upcoming Monday. This march, this church community, their intertwined history, let her imagine how Dr. King’s dream of justice for all can come true, she said.

And with that, the marchers were off, escorted by a dozen police motorcycles.

Rev. Kennedy Hampton, walking side by side with Winfield and both holding a picture of George Hampton, led the marchers on the annual parade’s familiar call and response.

“We are marching! On Dr. King’s birthday,” he said, with each line repeated back to him by those alongside.

“We are marching! Each and every day.”

“Made up my mind. And I won’t turn around.”