- May 9, 2024
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Political candidate Sims Jones watches as the cars file into the courthouse parking lot. Photos by Brian McMillan
Flagler County Branch NAACP President Linda Matthews
Mike Cocchiolo
Joseph Small
A man in a Trump 2020 truck drove by just as the march was set to leave Town Center.
Merrill and Barbara Climo
Raleigh Stockton
Ed Pinto
Raleigh Stockton was the second car of about 200 lined up at Palm Coast Town Center on Aug. 28 for a Motorized March. He was also present 57 years earlier, at the very event this march was intended to commemorate: the March on Washington, D.C., where Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
“I’ve walked this nation for almost 82 years,” Stockton said. “We’ve made some progress but not enough.”
Stockton, an Air Force veteran, was also the president of the Palm Coast Civic Association for six years before the city incorporated in 1999. Then as now, his focus was the same: “Getting people to vote.”
“This is a great country,” he said. “We have one of the greatest constitutions in the world, but we’ve got to live up to it.”
Improving race relations and encouraging people to vote were the two main messages of the Motorized March, which concluded at the Flagler County Courthouse with brief speeches by political candidates and leaders of the Flagler County branch of the NAACP and the African American Cultural Society.
“Voting is the most important thing you can do for yourself in 2020,” said Linda Matthews, president of the NAACP. “Voting is the tool that you have in your possession to make change. … I can’t tell you who to vote for, but I can tell you to vote for the people who have your best interest in mind. Vote for people who are going to hear you, who recognize the concerns you have.”
“Voting is the most important thing you can do for yourself in 2020.”
LINDA MATTHEWS, president of the NAACP.
Joseph Matthews, president of the AACS, encouraged residents to vote and encourage their neighbors to vote, as well. “Every vote counts,” he said. “ … Vote for a change.”
Candidates who spoke included Larry Jones, Sims Jones, Cornelia Manfre, Corrine Hermle, Clint Curtis and Heather Hunter.
Ed Pinto, chairman of the AACS, said before the march that he believes there has been progress in racial equality in America, but blacks are still disproportionately being killed by law enforcement.
“I have five sons and seven grandsons,” Pinto said. “Anything I can do to contribute to their safety is a good thing.”
Pinto said that even at age 70, he feels he has to be concerned about being stopped by police “because I’m a big black guy.”
He added that there has been an improvement at the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office over the past 20 years that he has lived here.
The event was attended by a diverse group. A white couple named Merrill and Barbara Climo said they have been members of the NAACP for many years.
“We must put an end to the injustice,” Barbara Climo said. “At my age, I don’t want to leave this world in this situation.”
