Special Coverage of the King Mango Strut

By Philip Cardella January 7, 2026

Coconut Grove, Florida

Historic Background on King Mango Strut

1982: While Dade County was still reeling from the McDuffie Rebellion (or riot, depending on who you talk to) two years earlier, Bea L. Hines, the now legendary columnist from the Miami Herald penned a column in the paper that ran on 25 October 1982, "Mango Strut is a silly idea–so, let's do it!"

"What this city needs right now is a good laugh," the column began, perhaps a reference to the ongoing rebuilding effort after the riots two years earlier. Or maybe it was to the surging drug violence in the county. Or both.

Anyway...

The original King Mango Strut was set up as a parody of the King Orange Festival, which at that time included a marathon along with the Orange Bowl football game. "The 26-mile Orange Bowl Marathon would be matched with the 2.6-mile Mango Stumble from one end of Coconut Grove to the other."

On 27 December 1982, the day after the first Mango Strut, the Miami News ran with the headline over its first photos of the parade "Wackos on Parade" and featured a photo of two drag queens.

Miami gonna Miami (Coconut Grove was a separate city from Miami for a time but is now its oldest neighborhood).

The Associated Press headline the day after the first Mango Strut was "Orange Bowl Committee Nightmare" with a subheading of "Mango Strutters 'weird, nice.'"

The article began "It may have looked like something out of an Orange Bowl Committee member's nightmare, but the first King Mango Strut in Miami's Coconut Grove section was a ceremony of pure delight for some 1,000 spectator."

Glenn Terry, a Coconut Grove lawyer who helped create the strut, apparently after being denied into the King Orange Parade, said at the time, "We want to put the nut back into Coconut Grove."

40 plus years later, and to the delight of 10,000 spectators each year, that's still the motto.

So, what was the King Mango Strut like in 2026?

Well, it was weird, nice. Full disclosure, in order to make it to the prayer vigil across from the South Florida Detention Center (aka Alligator Alcatraz) I had to leave before the parade got fully going. I walked the length of the parade participants in the staging area for a couple of hours though.

And I saw the very start of the parade as I was rushing to my car.

That said, it was festive. There were a lot of hyper local issues on display like the ending of the ill fated, animal neglecting Seaquarium (where one of the Flipper dolphin stars allegedly committed suicide years ago and that's not even the tip of the iceberg for the place), biodiversity awareness from the Kampong National Tropical Botanical Garden just a mile up the road and the food pantry in Coconut Grove.

There were, of course, political signs. While maybe 40% of the parade goers that I noted weren't touting left/right political issues (if any politics at all) probably 50% were anti-incumbent administrations for Florida and the United States and maybe 10% pro Trump (but I can only think of two participant groups that seemed pro-Trump, so it's a guess).

Anyway, I prefer to let the photos (and videos) do the talking so I'll do just that.

Political

Apolitical (?)

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