Today is the 50th anniversary of perhaps our greatest triumph of participatory democracy: the 1963 March on Washington to demand civil rights for blacks.
About200,000 people of all races gathered to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech and other eloquent calls for justice.
The march gave critical mass to a movement that began with young Freedom Riders in the South and led to passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.
In the years since, others who have achieved greater civil rights — women, gays, the disabled — all rode on the backs of the 1960s Freedom Riders.
To appreciate these accomplishments against daunting odds, visit presspass.nbcnews.com and watch NBC’s "Meet the Press" interview of King and NAACP leader Roy Wilkins three days before the march.
Condescending panelists suggested blacks were moving faster than Americans were ready for and predicted the march would turn violent, but King and Wilkins handled the insults with intelligence, patience and bemusement.
NBC’s Lawrence Spivak asserted "it would be impossible to bring 100,000 militant negroes into Washington without incidents and possibly riots."
Actually, twice as many showed up andwere admirably peaceful and disciplined.
Panelists disregardedviolence against blacks in the South, which recently had included the murder of NAACP worker Medgar Evers in Mississippi, turning fire hoses and attack dogs on peaceful demonstrators in Alabama, and multiple beatings of Freedom Riders.
Frank van der Linden of the Nashville Banner insinuatedthatmarch organizer Bayard Rustin, later a Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, was a communist and that there were "other motives" for the march.
Richard Wilson of Cowles Newspapers said "the negroes are pushing too hard and too fast."
King responded: "The negro has been very patient.We’ve waited for well-nigh 340 years for basic constitutional and God-given rights. … The shape of the world today doesn’t permit our country the luxury of an anemic democracy."
The latter point is as true in 2013 as it was 50 years ago.
Spivak encouraged blacks togive the country time to digest change before pushing for more.
Wilkins answered: "It isn’t thatindigestible. It won’t choke you to death."
The two were pressed on whether they’d be satisfied with political and economic equality or if they’d insist on social equality, as well.
Those who saw the film "Lincoln" will recall the same bigotry being voiced 100 years earlier by those opposed to abolishing slavery.
The civil rights movement was about correcting poisonous divisions between Americans.
We can best honor the courage it represented by working to heal thecomplex divisions inour societytoday that couldn’t have been imagined in 1963.
(Note: Volcanic Ash will move to Sundays starting Sept. 8.)
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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
