Voices of the March: A multitude hungry for history and empowerment

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It was a march brimming with hope, punctuated by smiling faces and laced with enthusiasm.

Held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the ’63 March on Washington, Saturday’s massive event attracted thousands: the young and elderly, people black, white, and biracial, and folk of varying religions. Retracing the footsteps of civil rights icons, they sought new inroads towards justice.

Some had protracted journeys, others travelled short distances. For a handful, the day stirred intense memories.

Retired youth advocate, ready for more

Priscilla Harden of Sugar Land, Texas was 13-years-old in 1963. She did not attend the original march, but vividly remembers its televised images.

“I felt so empty. I felt so much pressure. I felt trapped, because I wanted to be a part of it,” Harden told theGrio.

Still vibrant 50 years later, the former educator wore a hot pink shirt emblazoned with messages, donned a hat decorated with mementoes and carried a parasol festooned with placards. Her dangling ribbons and charms symbolized what she called her failures and successes as a teacher.

“There are so many of our youth who are so empty, so many of our youth who are throw away children, who are abandoned children, who are wounded children,” Harden said. “Who have no seed that we can even hope to water. So we have to plant a seed. This is a way of remembering all of my students, children and grandchildren.”

Harden’s students struggled in a flawed education system, feeding into a legal and social system that further sabotages blacks — schemas that are just as destructive today as Jim Crow was in the South, she said.

That is why she marched. “We are either in it, asking questions, or we are nonchalant. If it is to be done, it is up to me,” one of her signs silently intoned.

“My sign says it all,” Harden affirmed.

Hungry for history and empowerment

Karon Breene of Newark, New Jersey sought to viscerally understand this critical moment in American history — the final thrust towards that pinnacle achievement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — now faded in social memory.

“It’s really important for me because I wasn’t here in 1963,” Breene told theGrio. “It’s also a good remembrance, because sometimes time passes and we forget what the point of the march was.”

She and Sam Goodman, also of Newark, had camped out on the National Mall while the sky was dim, staking out a spot as close to the main stage as possible after driving all night.

Goodman was in chipper spirits. “I was born in ’72, she was born in ’75,” he added. “We were not able to make that one, but we are here now.”

He was moved to be present by the persistent inequality gnawing at the underbelly of American society. Often hidden and then becoming suddenly evident, he said it is exemplified in George Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict. Zimmerman was acquitted of second degree murder and manslaughter after killing Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teen, in what he described as self-defense.

Believing Martin’s death resulted from racial profiling, the tragic loss has inflamed a multitude.

“I believe that he didn’t die in vain,” Goodman said. “It sparked more of a movement, especially for young African-American men, about the danger and jeopardy that men — and women for that matter — are in.”

Yet, both were highly pleased that the march of 2013 trumpeted a call for rights encompassing immigration reform and protections for the environment, far beyond the race-related demands of ’63.

“Laws and rights are to protect everybody,” Goodman said. “It could be a disability, it could be your religion, it could be a variety of things, so we have to realize that this is not just about race. A lot of people try to single out black America. It’s bigger than that.”

Teens excited to incite change

A black girl with flowing hair in a Trayvon Martin T-shirt stood near a bright-faced African-American boy, who looked comparatively innocent of the shadowy nature of life.

Dante Talley, 14, with a fresh haircut and crisp polo shirt, had trekked from Philadelphia for his lesson in history. Flanked by a small army of female relatives, who beamed during his interview, he shared his pride in emulating his civil rights predecessors.

“It feels great to be here, because I don’t really know about my past,” Talley told theGrio. “It feels great to see all these people attending, and to know that this is the kind of event that can only happen every 50 years.”

Will the march commove him into politics? The young man answered solemnly, “I’ll try my best.”

Leaning against a metal railing not too far away, sixteen-year-old Vanessa Wilson of Norwalk, Connecticut had a placard calling for the passing of Trayvon’s Law and perfectly coifed hair. Trayvon’s Law would amend Stand Your Ground laws on a state by state basis to make it harder to use in self-defense. Perhaps Talley was just steps from the activist version of his future self.

Prompted to give up a beautiful Saturday by “just everything that’s going on in today’s society,” Wilson told theGrio: “I feel like I should have a voice and stand up for what I believe in. Ever since the Trayvon Martin case, I became more interested in [what’s going on in] America, and African-American society.”

She was convinced that marching on Saturday could favorably metamorphose both. “I hope that the voting rights are changed,” Wilson said of the recent weakening of the Voting Rights Act, “and I hope that America as a whole can look at how African-Americans were treated and become more educated.”

Eldery, yet fierce-spirited

“Dreams are for young people,” said Sylvia Lieberman, 71, who was almost 22 when she attended the march in 1963 with friends and the support of her family. “None of us were African-Americans, but we understood everyone deserved full participation in society.”

With auburn hair and a quiet composure, Lieberman sat listening on Saturday to fiery oratory by Rep. John Lewis, the last surviving speaker from the ’63 march, public intellectual Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, and Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers. The high-mindedness exhibited back then was echoed in 2013, but times have changed for Lieberman in an essential way.

“The difference is much more mature eyes,” she told theGrio. “I am much more knowledgable, and not so idealistic. I walked away 50 years ago thinking, ‘Oh, a year, maybe two, and this will be solved. We’ll be able to take care of this.’ It made sense. It was the way to do it.”

Living through the “Great Society” period, when President Lyndon Johnson implemented programs during the mid-’60s to eradicate poverty and other inequalities, Lieberman thought this humanitarian trend would continue. She is stunned at America’s regression.

“It’s fascinating to me how now they’re not increasing pay,” the Philadelphia native said. “They’re decreasing benefits. So we are in a worse position. And it seems like we are in a much meaner society.”

After the march, many possibilities 

And so she marched, as did the almost 200,000 people who attended the 50th anniversary event on Saturday.

These were all very different faces. But all were able to unite under a spiritual umbrella of hope, and the sincere desire to see this march lead to change.

“Anytime you have people come together, of all races, in terms of unity, something magical happens and it’s a blessing,” Goodman said. “We’re all God’s creatures. People coming together — that’s power. It’s a force.”

“I hope that we will graduate to a different level of awareness,” Harden said. “I want to remind everybody that it’s our responsibility to help everybody. If we don’t get involved and make these wrongs right, generations yet to be born are going to be affected. I know that under our legacy, we’ve got to leave our world in a better place than how we found it, and this is one way to carry that on.”

“I think we need to follow up with action, but I think marching is important because it incites the interest of people who might be a little bit quiet and complacent. But we do need to follow up with other things, absolutely,” said Breene.

“I’m an educator. I’ve been an educator my whole life. And what I would hope is that everything will return to free quality education. If we have that, we have a lot of hope,” Lieberman said. “Much of society’s ills begin with the lack of a quality education. I saw that in 1963, and I see the same thing in 2013.”

These marchers continued on in their hope of advancing a modern agenda of social justice using prototypical means — grasping at that baton that seems to be forever passed forward from that golden era of activism, to the next generation, and the next, as long as King’s dream remains unfulfilled.

Follow Alexis Garrett Stodghill on Twitter at @lexisb.