Baltimore’s very own bodybuilding grandmother to serve as MLK Day Parade grand marshal

Ernestine Shepherd is taking her goal of getting Baltimore walking to Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade as grand marshal of the festivities. 

Shepherd, 87, is a well-known face in the Baltimore fitness community who has been twice recognized by the Guinness World Records as the oldest competitive female bodybuilder in the world, in 2010 and 2011. In 2020, she also made a cameo appearance in Beyonce’s visual musical album, “Black is King.”

Shepherd was overjoyed at the news that she’d been tapped as grand marshal for 2024’s MLK Day Parade, back this year without any of 2023’s festivity-related drama.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Shepherd said. “I said, ‘All of these people out there, and they have selected me?’ I said, ‘Wow, how wonderful.’” 

Monday’s parade, which starts at noon at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Eutaw Street, is being put on by both the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts. The parade will conclude at Baltimore Street and Fremont Avenue.

In an emailed statement, the mayor’s office said that as grand marshal, Shepherd will walk in the parade and interact with attendees.

“The Grand Marshal for the MLK Parade is typically chosen based on their longstanding commitment to community service, advocacy for diversity and inclusion, and embodiment of the principles and values that Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for,” the office said. “As a Baltimorean, Ms. Ernestine Shepherd was selected because of the significant impact she’s made on women of color, particularly within the senior community, her advocacy around health, and dedication to fostering unity, equality, and justice within the City of Baltimore.” 

Shepherd said she hasn’t done any competitions lately but she’s still a personal trainer at YouFit gym in Randallstown. It’s her mission to “help as many people as I can to live a healthy, happy, positive, confident lifestyle,” which includes incorporating lots of walking; Shepherd walks at least four to five miles a day, she said. And it will be no different on Monday, when Shepherd will rely on her Brooks Addiction sneakers to navigate the 1.2-mile parade route rather than a luxury vehicle.

“They asked me ‘Did I want to ride in a limousine?’ but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to walk. So I’m going to walk the miles,” Shepherd said. “I thought about how Martin Luther King did all the walking that he did to help us, so I too would like to walk, just like he did.” 

Chauncey Whitehead, another Baltimore fitness activist and personal trainer, will be joining Shepherd Monday alongside “Chauncey’s Angels and Champions,” a group that started doing weekly outdoor Sunday walks at Druid Hill Park in 2020 when the onset of COVID-19 kept people out of indoor gyms. Whitehead said Shepherd is their “mother angel.” 

Whitehead met Shepherd over 20 years ago while on an eight-mile walk on Liberty Road; he eventually walked five of those miles alongside Shepherd, discovering how much they had in common. Since that meeting, the two have been joined at the hip, Whitehead said, as “fitness mother and fitness son.” 

Whitehead joins Shepherd for her monthly community walk, usually hosted at 7:30 a.m. on the third Saturday of each month at Druid Hill Park. Shepherd promotes and documents the walk on her social media — she has over 94,000 followers on her Instagram. Whitehead said the walks have drawn people from far-away places like Texas, California and even England.

Whitehead said Shepherd is a symbol of both positivity and unity.

“I believe that the city chose her because it’s one of these, no matter what age you’re at, no matter where you live in the city, we can come together as one, move as one,” Whitehead said. “She has that effect on people: that you just want to be around her.” 

Whitehead and his group will be dressed in yellow alongside Shepherd, who chose the color to honor her late husband, Collin Jefferson Shepherd Jr., who died four years ago. The couple were married for nearly 65 years.

“Yellow was my husband’s favorite color and whenever we went to something for Martin Luther King, he always wore a yellow shirt and a yellow necktie with a handkerchief,” Shepherd said. “Anything that happened concerning Martin Luther King, he was always there.” 

But Shepherd will still be joined by family. She expects her son, Michael, to be there, and potentially her grandson, who is also named Michael. 

A Northwest Baltimore resident, Shepherd has spent her entire life in the city, graduating from Dunbar High School in 1954; before going into training, Shepherd worked at Western Electric for 30 years, as a secretary in the school system and at a beauty mart. She said she’s attended the MLK Day Parade once before, which she called “simply wonderful.” She added that being a part of this year’s program is so important to her it could make her cry. 

“It means so much for me to be a part of this program because if you only knew just how much I praise and love Martin Luther King Jr. and anything that I can do to really show people just how wonderful he was — I would do anything, just anything,” Shepherd said.