Close to Home: Remembering the 1963 March on Washington

On a very hot day on Aug. 28, 1963, I attended the March on Washington. I was 19. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. People from every state in the union and many countries around the world convened to celebrate what was then believed to be the beginning of the end of Jim Crow laws and racial prejudice around our great country.

I rode over 24 hours straight on a bus from Carbondale, Illinois, to Washington to be part of the historic march. It seemed that everyone exuded enthusiasm and optimism for the future of civil rights for everyone, regardless of the color of their skin.

I felt like I was among close friends and family as I wandered among the mass of people there to celebrate freedom. The sense of being connected and solidarity are the strongest I ever experienced.

There were many speakers and entertainers, including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Marian Anderson and Mahalia Jackson, before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke.

Soon, “I have a dream” was on everyone’s mind. The entire assembly stopped speaking, stopped milling around and started listening closely.

King began by acknowledging the 100-year anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation: “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.”

King’s words, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where one day they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” resonated with everyone. His words hit a chord with the hearts and minds of the entire assembly.

It would be nearly a year later when the first of two landmark pieces of legislation were passed. The first was the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the second was the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed literacy tests and poll taxes. Between them, they changed the economic, political, educational and social structure of our country. These laws paved the road we are still traveling, the dream King spoke of that day in Washington.

Those laws surely made an important difference across our great nation. Progress was moving, albeit slowly. Civil rights workers lost their lives, as did King. Public schools in the South, and elsewhere, were still segregated years later, despite a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in 1954. Public accommodations took longer to desegregate.

But in 2013, the Supreme Court held that a portion of the Voting Rights Act was outdated and no longer relevant to the present day. Shelby County v. Holder was a landmark ruling, gutting the Voting Rights Act by eliminating critical protections from discrimination, most notably a requirement that states with a history of discrimination against people of color get permission from the Justice Department to change election laws.

Within a few days, states began passing legislation that made it harder to vote. Just in the past three years further limits on voting have passed state legislatures. Examples include ID requirements, voter roll purges, polling place closures, reduced early voting, reduced voting hours and complex provisional ballot requirements. These limits on our basic democratic right to vote are being challenged in the courts and in the legislative process.

Still, this date in 1963 awakened the sensitivity of America to the sordid plight of citizens who, because of the color of their skin, were being relegated to poverty, poor living conditions, substandard public education, a lack of access to public accommodations and a lack of health care. Now, their voices would be heard. On this day, many realized that changes were indeed coming. But the struggle continues.

Charles O. Prickett, an attorney, is the author of “Remembering Mississippi Freedom Summer.” He lives in Santa Rosa.

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