Johnson: Here’s what I remember from the 1963 March on Washington

I am sitting in my office on August 28 remembering the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that took place on this date in 1963.

I have so many wonderful memories of that day. I see the faces of so many people of every race, ethnicity, gender and religion. I’ve been part of hundreds of marches in my lifetime, but the March on Washington is still that march, that event, that experience that continues to remind me of what America can be if we all work together.

There are some things about that march which are not well-known. First, I was a skinny, handsome teenager fresh out of high school when I attended the march. I helped to organize a group from my hometown of Plaquemine, La., and surrounding areas. We had more than four charter buses headed from the bayous of Louisiana to the capital.

We were happy and yet hesitant at the same time. Interstate travel with integrated buses was against the law in the South. We knew many of us would not make it to the march because of being arrested by state police in Louisiana, Mississippi or Georgia. We had already raised bail money before we left, and we needed it!

One of the speakers to be featured that day, Dr. James Farmer, who was head of the Congress of Racial Equality, was not able to speak at the march because he was in jail in my hometown. He was there with us as we protested the stifling voting laws in our parish. The protests led to my home church being tear-gassed by state troopers while we were having a meeting. They busted through the doors and windows riding horses throughout the sanctuary, beating us with cattle prods and billy clubs. The local police arrested Farmer and would not release him.

Another interesting item is that one of the biggest supporters of the march was Charlton Heston. He was close friends of Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and Sammy Davis Jr. He was standing up front with most of the Hollywood celebrities like Robert Culp and Burt Lancaster. The same man who was the lead in the movie The Ten Commandments and a staunch financial supporter of civil rights later in life became the head of the National Rifle Association.

Also, we seem to forget this was not the first March on Washington. In May 1957, a march called Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom had more than 25,000 demonstrators. The march was to encourage the federal government to continue working to implement Brown vs. Board of Education. The figurehead of the 1957 and 1963 marches was A. Philip Randolph, a larger-than-life luminary of the Civil Rights Movement.

I still laugh when I think about how the “I Have a Dream” speech came about. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had already started on a different speech when singer Mahalia Jackson, who was sitting in the background and not known for whispering, shouted, “Martin, tell them about your dream! Tell them about your dream, Martin!”

I guess she must have shouted it one too many times, because King closed his binder and delivered one of the greatest speeches of all time.

You see, Jackson had heard the speech before. Two months before the March on Washington, King stood before a large crowd in Detroit and delivered a sermon titled, “Making the American Dream a reality.” Jackson was present for that speech and shouted for Martin to deliver it again. When King closed his binder that day in Washington, D.C., and looked across the vast audience, Rev. C.T. Vivian could be heard shouting, “We’re about to go to church!”

America, the dream is still alive. I have seen great changes in our country. Do we still have more to do? Yes! But we have come a mighty, mighty long way.

So, as my mentor and one of the greatest 20th-century philosophers said, and I say with him, “I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.”

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