Forty years ago this week, over 250,000 men and women descended upon Washington as if from Heaven and transformed DC into a light so bright it could be seen from Alpha Centauri. I'm certain that if the first radio waves intelligent lifeforms receive from the planet Earth contain the phrase "I have a Dream..." then we will be blessed indeed for we will be recognized not only as intelligent, but as CIVILIZED.
I think it was Langston Hughes though who asked what happens to a dream deferred?
By continuing to celebrate dreaming and a mass spectacle that occurred over forty years ago, aren't we deferring that dream even further?
Some historical perspective is in order. Many of us who are familiar with the history of the original March on Washington recognize that there was a great deal of conflict over the minutiae of the March. Who would speak first, how long would people speak, would King speak longer than anyone else? On one level these conflicts were utterly unimportant. I'm sure that your average elderly couple from Detroit didn't care at all whether the NAACP representative or someone from CORE hit the mic first. But on another level this was life and death, because the "black leadership kitty" was at stake. If King spoke longer (and more eloquently) than the others it would signal that HE was the black leader that people had to negotiate with, and by fiat the SCLC would be the organization that would have the requisite legitimacy needed to garner resources from fat cat donors.
What? You didn't KNOW?
There was also a conflict between the kids from SNCC (those damn kids again!) and the old heads. John Lewis, now Congressman Lewis thank you very much, had a speech already to go that was so hot geiger counters went off. No We Shall Overcome...nope. More like We Shall OverTHROW. As soon as some of the liberal whites heard it they were like..."listen. He says THAT right THERE? I'm OUT."
So they toned the speech down.
But there was another conflict that superseded all of this.
Michael Thelwell, one of the founders of SNCC wrote a piece called THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON--THE CASTRATED GIANT. You can still find it in vol. 2 of Gerald Early's SPEECH AND POWER. According to Thelwell, the original plan for the March was as follows--people would go to Washington, but rather than congregate at the Mall they would instead go to Congress and sit-in. Sitting on the floor of Congress was of course illegal. So as waves were sent to the joint, new waves would replace them, to the point that the jails were full.
And the seat of the free world would be rendered impotent.
As soon as word filtered out of THIS plan, folks stepped in to head it off at the pass. Instead of a protest and a sit-in, we'd have...some nice speeches. Organizing for THIS event rather than for the protest basically hamstrung local efforts. Folks were dragged away from boring tasks like say, registering people in Mississippi to VOTE, and instead placed on DC detail.
According to Thelwell the March basically sapped the spirit of the movement.
So here we are, forty years later, and that story has pretty much been expunged from the record. Malcolm X alludes to it in one of his speeches (real quick...isn't it strange that the NOI dogs the March, then has one of its own some 30 years later?) but that's about it. Because we don't really know the history, we're doomed to repeat it. Celebrating false victories, and engaging in the politics of mass spectacle instead of organizing folks around the here and now.
(thanks to the Nightstalker for the "Looking for Moses" angle...)
Posted by at August 23, 2003 10:12 AM | TrackBackAs an aside, Michael Thelwell is a really great writer. I especially admire is style and perspective. I think it's a shame he is not more widely known and read.
Posted by: Cobb at August 23, 2003 04:43 PM
Very interesting there was a threat of a March in the 40's that open door for equal opourtunity in the war effort.A Phillip Randolph negotiated with the President saying in essence open the door of opourtunity or face the enemy with a divided country;Roosevelt then issue executive order outlawing discrimination in government contracts.
Posted by: Vaughn L at August 23, 2003 12:33 PM