The LGBTQ youth business and services group Check It Enterprises, Whitman-Walker Health, and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation were among the dozens of contingents that joined D.C.’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Peace Walk and Parade on Jan. 20.

Check It Enterprises, whose headquarters is located on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, S.E., where the MLK Parade passes each year, had a float in the parade on Monday that featured two go-go bands, according to Check It co-founder and managing member Ron Moten. 

Also located near where the parade began in Anacostia is Whitman-Walker’s Max Robinson Center, whose staff members as well as staff and board members from Whitman-Walker’s other offices joined the parade in a walking contingent, said spokesperson Abby Fenton.

Fenton said Whitman-Walker’s HIV testing van was also part of Whitman-Walker’s parade contingent.

Thousands of marchers from D.C. and the surrounding jurisdictions were expected to join the parade, which traveled a two-mile route along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue from its starting point at Good Hope Road in Anacostia to the Gateway Pavilion at 2730 MLK Ave.

Whitman-Walker and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is headquartered in Los Angeles but has two offices in D.C. and one in Prince George’s County, Md., as well as other locations across the country, provide health care and HIV services to the LGBTQ community.

Among those marching in the parade this year were D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and at least six members of the D.C. Council, including Council Chair Phil Mendelson and Ward 8 Council member Trayon White in whose ward the parade took place.

Joining the mayor in the parade was Martin Luther King III, the son of the famous civil rights leader, along with other members of the King family.