East Macon parade and pep rally set to honor Northeast playoff run and Martin Luther King Jr.

While much of Bibb County will be honoring the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. this weekend, East Macon will be combining King’s legacy with one of the community’s recent achievements in its EastsideOutLoud Unity Day celebration Sunday afternoon.

The event, which consists of a parade followed by a pep rally with DJs and local vendors, will honor the Northeast Raiders football team, which made it all the way to the GHSA A-Division I state championship this season.

Marshall Talley, a community figure and a Northeast booster, spearheaded the celebration with help from Bibb County commissioner Stanley Stewart.

“Northeast and the whole Eastside community had an amazing year,” Stewart told The Melody this week. “This event is intended for everyone to come out and recognize that team’s achievement. They came up short on the field, but not in our hearts.”

The event will act as a community celebration as well as a recognition ceremony for Raider athletes and coaches, Stewart said. The parade starts at 2 p.m. at Burdell Hunt Elementary school and winds down Maynard Street in East Macon before concluding at Rosa Jackson Recreation Center, where the pep rally will begin at 3:30 p.m. until the event ends at 6 p.m.

Stewart, who watched Northeast’s championship game in-person at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, spoke about how the Raiders’ unlikely title run brought unity to the East Macon community and put the area on the state map in a distinctive way.

“Not just that, if you went up to that championship game, you saw a sea of East Macon people,” Stewart said. “The people made the trip up there and showed out in support. It was a banner year for the football team and the community in terms of representation.”

Stewart’s sentiments were echoed by Nick Woodford, the Raiders’ most outstanding player, after the playoff run finally came to an end in the championship game. 

Woodford shattered Bibb County’s career rushing yards record in his senior season and helped guide Northeast to the title bout. The Raiders were the first Bibb County School District team to reach the state championship since the Central Chargers won the trophy in 1975. The Raiders drew a crowd that donned T-shirts and waved a banner that read “Eastside Out Loud”.

“It’s no other place we would want to be at,” Woodford said of Macon and its east side after Northeast lost the title game 38-18 to the Toombs County Bulldogs. “When you think about Macon, Georgia, when you think about the Eastside, you think about a family. Not just the football team, a community that’s thriving. Even though the negativity may come and go, we just (striving) to be the best.”

While the event is a recognition of the school and its achievements, the parade being scheduled for the Sunday of MLK Weekend was no mistake.

“EastSideOutLoud Unity Day is more than just a celebration; it’s a movement that embodies Dr. King’s vision of peace, unity, and collective strength,” community organizer Marshall Talley said in a post on the Macon-Bibb County website. “This event will serve as an annual reminder of the power we hold when we come together as one community.”

Stewart spoke about how representing the Eastside community and Martin Luther King Jr. simultaneously was very important to him, both in his stint as the district’s representative as a county commissioner and in his personal life.

“I mean, behind my mother, Dr. King is my hero. He did a lot for Black and Brown people in America and really all Americans. It’s intentional to have it this Sunday, because we’ll be marching along with the rest of Macon the very next day,” Stewart said. “Recognizing this area and its recent achievements at the same time feels right.

“This is a community… where living and working here makes you proud. Being from here, and being a Northeast grad in the Class of 1989, I want to represent these people and their community. I’m just glad Marshall could put it together and I could help be a part of it,” Stewart said. 

The county commissioner also hopes the event will become an annual tradition honoring different Eastside accomplishments each year.

“I think it can really be an opportunity to build us up economically as well,” Stewart said. “I want it to really help promote all the things this part of Macon needs, as well as the things it already has going for it.”

The parade runs from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday on Maynard Street.