'THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON"

 “THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON”

Sixty years ago today, over 250,000 people gathered in Washington, DC, for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  It was the brainchild of A. Philip Randolph, the great union organizer, and his assistant Bayard Rustin, the conscientious objector and civil rights leader.  There were many moving parts to organize in order to get this many people from all over the country to DC.  Randolph had wanted to do this kind of march in the 1940’s, but President Roosevelt talked him out of it.  A smaller version was held in 1957, but this one in 1963 was the send-off for many people in the movement.  

President Kennedy tried to talk Randolph out of doing the march in 1963, fearing that bringing 100,000 Black people to DC would lead to violence and maybe even rioting.  Randolph and Rustin cited their lifelong commitment to nonviolence and virtually guaranteed that it would be a peaceful march.  Other civil rights leaders wanted to ban Rustin from the March because he was gay, but Randolph said “no Rustin, no Randolph.”  Rustin stayed on as the principal organizer, and while Randolph worked on the political aspects of the March, Rustin worked on the logistics of getting people into DC and getting them back out again.  

He contacted labor unions, churches and synagogues and other places of worship, and civil rights groups, hoping to draw the 100,000 people to DC for the day and the March.  The time was right – in June, Medgar Evers had been assassinated in Mississippi the day after Governor George Wallace had stood in the door at the University of Alabama to prevent the entry of Black students Vivian Malone and James Hood.  The Children’s Crusade at Birmingham in the spring of 1963 had showed the nation the depth of hatred and racism in us, and MLK’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” had called out white moderates and liberals who thought things were moving too fast.  People all over the country began to organize to come to the March.  We found out at the funeral of Azzie Preston that as a teenager she organized a busload of people to ride to DC from Dekalb County.  

This work of Azzie’s was repeated all over the nation, and the turnout was astonishing.  Thousands traveled by road, rail, and air to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, August 28. Marchers from Boston traveled overnight and arrived in Washington at 7am after an eight-hour trip, but others took much longer bus rides from cities such as Milwaukee, Little Rock, and St. Louis.  A total of 450 buses left New York City from Harlem. Maryland police reported that by 8:00 a.m., 100 buses an hour were streaming through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel.  Organizers had hoped for 100,000 participants – they were stunned but gratified to see 250,000 line the mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.  There were many struggles over who would be speaking at the March – one obvious glaring omission were women speakers.  None were allowed, though Daisy Bates was allowed to say 200 words in replacing Myrlie Evers, whose plane was delayed.  John Lewis, who was head of SNCC at the time, wrote a fiery speech condemning the federal government for its lack of interest in the suffering of Black people.  The organizers did not want to offend President Kennedy or Attorney General Robert Kennedy, but Lewis would not back down.  Finally, A. Philip Randolph, for whom Lewis had great respect, talked Lewis into modifying his speech just enough to make it palatable.

The main event (other than the 250,000 people) was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech to conclude the March.  I have written previously in this blog that I listened to King’s speech in my home in Arkansas by myself, because I did not want my friends to know that I was listening to this speech in the week before I entered into my senior year in high school.  King’s speech had a profound effect on me and on many in our nation.  He framed the American vision of equality in a way that I had never heard before, and I was not alone in thinking this.  King opened a window into my head and heart, so that my imagination could begin to see the world and myself differently from the white supremacy that I had been taught and which I believed.  

Our friend John Blake wrote a fine column on King’s speech earlier this year in his work for CNN.  Here is part of what he wrote:  

“The speech King gave 60 years ago in Washington has been endlessly replayed, dissected and misquoted. It’s his most famous speech. But here’s another way to look at it: It is also the most radical speech King ever delivered.  That declaration might sound like sacrilege to those who will point to King’s thunderous takedowns of war, poverty and capitalism in other sermons. But “I Have a Dream” has arguably become his most radical speech — not because of what he said but because of how America has changed since that day.  Forget the nonthreatening version of the speech you’ve been taught that emphasizes King’s benign vision of Black, White and brown Americans living in blissful racial harmony.  The core concept in King’s dream is racial integration – and it still terrifies many people 60 years later.”  For the rest of John’s fine article, here is the link:  

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/15/us/mlk-i-have-a-dream-speech-blake-cec/index.html

    John is correct – many of us classified as “white” do not accept the idea of equality and integration that is at the heart of March on Washington and at the heart of our lives today.  As we celebrate this powerful March, let us rededicate ourselves to continue to develop that dream of equality, lest the Trumpsters take us back to the 1850’s.