Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 12, 1991 TAG: 9103120273
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE/ NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The Virginia Tech fraternity has asked for a parade permit for April 20 to commemorate Murphy, a reputed gangster who was shot and killed by another gangster in the 1920s.
What the fraternity really wants to do, though, is have a party. A fake wake seems like as good an excuse as any.
"A coffin is paraded through town, the brothers are dressed in black," and one fraternity member plays the role of the dead Murphy, said Joseph Falkinham, an associate professor of biology and the frat's adviser. "It's just a way to publicize the party."
Falkinham wasn't sure if Murphy was a real person. "It's been a transposed sort of legend in terms of fraternities," he said.
Legend or no, the Blacksburg Police Department is taking the application seriously and has recommended that Town Council reject it.
Council has scheduled a discussion on the request at tonight's meeting at 7:30 in town hall.
In a memo, Chief Don Carey said the parade is purely social and "only a prelude to a party at the fraternity house," not of community-wide interest and likely to create downtown traffic problems.
Also, Dan Lewis, the frat's social organizer who signed the application, refused to confine the parade route to the campus.
The parade would start at 3 p.m., last 20 minutes, and involve 60 people on foot, and 10 cars, the application says. The students also are asking for a police escort.
The frat wants to parade from Roanoke Street to Main Street, around the drill field, up Washington Street to Draper Road and back to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house on East Roanoke Street.
In 1988, council voted 4-2 to turned down a similar request for a Paddy Murphy parade. Council members were concerned about traffic problems, as well as setting a precedent for parades and demonstrations of a social nature.
Town Attorney Richard Kaufman said he advised council then that citizens have the right to use public streets - even for social events.
However, council has the right restrict the time, place and manner of demonstrations and parades, because of the crowds.
Kaufman said a local government would have much less authority over an individual who wanted to stand on a street corner and hand out leaflets espousing some cause.
The issue revolves more around the constitutional right to assemble, rather than freedom of speech, which came up during the Ku Klux Klan march here in January.
by CNB