Pic of Day: Huntsville, Alabama St. Patrick’s Day Parade Grand Marshal and Irish Echo Publisher Máirtín Ó Muilleoir shakes hands with Sonnie Hereford IV, Notre Dame graduate and rocket scientist as the green cavalcade passed through downtown on Saturday 11 March. Sonnie was famously the first African-American child admitted to the public school system in Huntsville. Sonnie’s father, civil rights advocate Dr. Sonnie Hereford III, sued the authorities of Rocket City to force the integration of the school system. After first closing all schools in the city, rather than admit a black child, city bosses finally relented and admitted Sonnie on September 9, 1963. Sonnie went on to attend Notre Dame, where he fell in love with all things Irish, and later went on to work with NASA. He has been a linchpin in the organization of the Huntsville St. Patrick’s Day parade for the past two decades. The car is a 1931 Willis.
