SPOKANE, Wash. – On January 17, 2011, City Council President Betsy Wilkerson went downtown to march.
But along the parade route, before the crowd was set to march down Main St, three city workers found a black Swiss Army backpack.
“There was a backpack,” Mark Steiner told Non Stop Local in 2011. “No big deal.”
But still, when they opened the bag to find wires, the three called 911.
“It looked like it could be a bomb,” the 911 caller told the dispatcher. “I know today’s Martin Luther King Junior Day.”
Later, FBI announced the backpack, was a remote-detonated bomb, packed with shrapnel and rat poison.
“For black folks, it was a flashback of a bombing in a church in Alabama, two children bombings that were happening other churches around the country,” Wilkerson explained.
The city worker’s early location of the backpack prompted the march to switch routes. No one was hurt. And importantly, Wilkerson said, the march continued.
“That’s it right there,” Wilkerson explained. “The march continues. The people who were trying to bomb the parade or scare us from gathering together didn’t work.”
But still, for participants, the averted bomb threat, causing concern.
“I’m telling you, the emotions were running high along with the fear,” Wilkerson said.
The incident also a grim reminder, that the terror of years past, could still take place, in modern Spokane.
“It reminded us we can never forget what happened then can happen today,” Wilkerson said.
Months later, FBI arrested Kevin Harpham outside of his home.
In 2011, Non Stop Local uncovered Harpham had a connection to the white supremacy group The National Alliance.
Harpham was convicted of several charges, including a hate crime, and sentenced to 32-years in prison.
But as for the yearly MLK marches, they’re still happening.
“We still gather every year,” Wilkerson said. “If you don’t know where you came from, you don’t know where you’re going.”
Wilkerson has participated in several MLK marches since 2011, and while she recalls the feelings of finding out a bomb was in place to cause mass harm, that’s not the only reason she marches.
“I think about it, but you can’t live in that space, it’s not the only reason,” Wilkerson said.
The hope in Martin Luther King’s message, she explained, one of the reasons she keeps marching towards equality and justice.
“It brings tears to my eyes,” Wilkerson said. “That they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. If America is to be America, that must be true.”
And after the events of 2011, all parades and marches are safer, Wilkerson told NonStop Local.
