TULSA

42 years ago, NORTH TULSA was still a decade away from political representation for the first time in its history, when Dr. Andrew Phillips led what had to be a nervous contingent to City Hall to ask about starting Tulsa's first MLK Day parade.

The answer was a "No." 

The first answer, that is.

A City Commissioner said he thought the idea was admirable, but, the city didn't have the manpower.  That's the moment JACQUELINE BROWN entered history. Brown, the commissioner's young administrative assistant spoke up, she could do it, she said.

And she did.

Phillips and his group incorporated the MLK Commemoration Society while Brown, at the helm for 30 years, gathered an army of friends and family, pulled together an entire community, and took the new parade from impossible to America's largest annual MLK celebration and, by far, Oklahoma's largest parade.

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