Did Palmetto’s MLK Day parade honor Martin Luther King’s message of unity and balance?

There’s a second — though not official — part to the famous quote, “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.”

The unofficial ending to that quote goes, “Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.”

So are the lessons taught by civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. being remembered, honored and applied today?

“I think so, but we have more work to do,” said Eddie Shannon, a community legend in his own right.

The World War II Navy veteran and longtime Manatee High School and Lincoln Memorial High School football coach unfolded his chair and took a seat for Saturday’s annual MLK Day Parade in Palmetto.

The sun was already beating down on this unusually warm January day, but nothing stops Shannon who is always quick with a joke, a smile and a warm, welcoming handshake.

Shannon said part of the work that remains involves the continued education of the civil rights movement led by King, and the way his message was honed to perfection with a combination of determination and love for all mankind.

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him,” King once said.

Shannon mirrored King’s words in expressing why the parade and multicultural festival was important to the community.

“This ties the community of Manatee County together,” Shannon said. “We have to be together and come together to understand one another for it to work.”

History is important, Shannon said, but ultimately no one can live there.

“It’s more important what we do now,’ he said. “It’s what we do in the present. But the youth has to understand that they have to get along because one of the worst things in the world is a misunderstanding.”

The parade drew hundreds of people and was not short on fanfare.

But did it have the desired effect in reflecting the memory of King’s passion for unity?

Or was it an opportunity for activism such as former NAACP president Rodney Jones — dressed in a Colin Kaepernick shirt and a Kaepernick wig and bearing a megaphone — who followed Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant’s parade car yelling about federal indictments?

King’s message was about balance, and Palmetto Police Chief Scott Tyler believes the annual parade and festival achieves the desired goal.

“I believe so,” Tyler said. “MLK weekend, the festival and the parade have become important to our community and it’s definitely grown every year.”

When asked if he believes the parade and festival reflect the diversity that King envisioned, Tyler simply pointed to the large crowds gathered along the parade route.

“It’s as diverse as our community,” Tyler said. “And we are all here together, but it’s also grown more diverse in the number of people that it draws from out of town. Each year, more and more people from the Tampa region come to Palmetto for these events making it even more diverse.”