The 2022 Lincoln County Martin Luther King Jr. Parade will take place Sunday in honor of the national celebration of King’s birthday on Monday.

Sponsored by the Lincoln County Branch of the NAACP, the parade will begin at 2 p.m. Participants will line up beginning at 1 p.m. at the old Piggly Wiggly location, 364 West Monticello St.

“The celebration must go on safely, especially with the current environment of COVID-19,” said local NAACP President the Rev. Rico Cain.

Anyone interested in participating in the parade should contact Cain at 601-754-9637 or another member of the NAACP. A $5 fee per vehicle — car, truck, ATV, bicycle or motorcycle — will go toward the work of the NAACP.

This year’s marshals are the Rev. Eugene Edwards and his wife, Cora Edwards.

Rev. Edwards is a native of Indianola. He is a 1968 graduate of Gentry High School and attended Jackson State University.

He worked for Packard Electric-GM in Clinton and retired from Delphi Packard Electric Systems in Brookhaven. He was the first president of IUE Local 718.

A Bogue Chitto native, Cora Edwards graduated Eva H. Harris School in 1966 and is a 1970 graduate of Jackson State University.

She worked with Hinds County/Jackson State Teacher Corps and the Jackson Public School Systems. She retired from the Brookhaven Public School District and later served as administrator/principal of Willowood Development Center in Jackson.

Cora served with the Brookhaven Educational Home Mission Baptist Association, the South Mississippi Baptist Convention, Eva H. Harris/Lincoln County Schools Reunion Committee and currently as president of the Gamma Beta Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc.

Rev. Edwards has served as pastor of St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Mt. Olive, Hopewell M.B. Church in Brookhaven and Mt. Pleasant M.B. Church in Sontag. He teaches at the A.P. Clay Bible Theological College in Magee and is the First Vice-Director of the South Mississippi State Baptist Congress.  Edwards is now pastor of New Zion Union M.B. Church in Bogue Chitto, where his wife serves as president of the Mothers/Deaconess Ministry and as chairperson of the Education Ministry.

The parade route will travel eastbound on West Monticello Street and turn left onto North Second Street, just past First Baptist Church. The procession will then continue north onto Main Street, then turn right onto Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, and end at the Dr. A. L. Lott Sportsplex.