- Home
- Leah Henderson
Together We March Page 3
Together We March Read online
Page 3
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS AND FREEDOM
Washington, DC
August 28, 1963
We must say: “Wake up, America! Wake up!” For we cannot stop, and we will not and cannot be patient.
—John Lewis
TOGETHER WE MARCH FOR OPPORTUNITY
Images of Black children, marching two by two, being attacked on the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, were still fresh in people’s minds in 1963. Not just in America, but all over the world. People realized that American Black people had no legal means to fight discrimination. The law did not protect them, so they had no choice but to take their grievances to the streets, where racial protests were happening in cities all over the country.
President Kennedy was sickened by what he saw in the South, troubled by the discontent in the North, and unsettled by how America was viewed abroad. He believed, despite disagreement from advisors, that he needed to submit a strong civil rights bill. But for the bill to become law, it would need to be passed by Congress. Black Americans knew pressure needed to be put on a largely undecided Congress to vote in favor of the bill that would finally offer them federal protection for equal access to public facilities, public education, and voting rights. To do this, they would have to continue the momentum they had ignited and bring their issues to Washington—the seat of power.
While Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference started planning a march for freedom, A. Philip Randolph, a labor organizer and prominent civil rights activist, had long been hoping to create a similar protest in Washington, but for job opportunities. Understanding there was strength in numbers, King and Randolph came together, and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was born. At first, President Kennedy feared the march was ill-timed and could harm the outcome of the bill before Congress if a disturbance broke out. But King and Randolph disagreed, reassuring the president that it would be an orderly and respectful affair. Leaders of the main civil rights groups of the time gathered to help sponsor the march, and a short time later, groups outside the Black community, like the United Auto Workers and the American Jewish Congress, joined them. The organizers planned for 100,000 people to attend, but on the day of the march, 250,000 arrived! Hardly a speck of grass could be seen. The crowd was made up of about 190,000 Black demonstrators and 60,000 allies. Early in the day, people arrived at the Washington Monument from all over—one had even traveled on roller skates all the way from Chicago, Illinois! People of different backgrounds held hands and locked arms, singing. At that time, it was the largest turnout Washington had ever seen.
Grasping arms and holding signs demanding voting rights, civil rights, and freedom, marchers moved down Constitution Avenue almost propelled by the energy and force of the crowd. People marched about nine blocks together showing they understood that if injustice happened to even one person, injustice was happening to everyone. When the protesters reached the Lincoln Memorial, the crowd was thick, fanning themselves in the 83-degree heat. Some sat high in nearby trees, eager to see the main ceremony. Celebrities, ministers, teachers, janitors, Christians, and Jews stood shoulder to shoulder, speaking with their sheer numbers as Dr. King spoke about his now famous dream.
The March on Washington wasn’t just about demanding that legislation get passed in Congress for Black jobs and freedom, it was also about hope and giving encouragement to those frustrated by the slow process of change. It said, don’t give up, don’t turn back, and don’t let anger overtake the will to keep marching. Congress passing the bill would be important, yes, but what was equally as important was the renewed energy and strength Black Americans and others received that day. Twenty million Black citizens and others across the country heard the message that they couldn’t rest until everyone was truly free.
They kept fighting for their cause, and less than one year later, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—which ended legal racial segregation and made discrimination unlawful—was signed, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 followed shortly after. While racism and discrimination did not disappear from the United States, they did become illegal after decades of people marching, showing that no matter how slow, real change is possible when we continue to come together.
FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT AND MARCH
Berkeley, California
November 20, 1964
There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part!… And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus—and you’ve got to make it stop!
—Mario Savio, member of Berkeley Free Speech Movement
TOGETHER WE MARCH FOR THE FREEDOM TO SPEAK OUR MINDS
When Dr. King said that 1963 was “not an end, but a beginning,” for many listening it was a shift from sitting on the sidelines to stepping up and becoming a voice in the demand for change.
By then, students were already on the front lines of protest movements, and they were spreading the word to friends on college campuses across the country, such as at the University of California at Berkeley. For some of the predominantly white UC Berkeley students who found themselves in handcuffs right alongside Black protesters, it was their first contact with the injustices minority groups in America had been facing for decades. Instead of turning away though, they became even more involved.
At Berkeley, a large part of spreading the word about these movements happened on a tiny strip of brick walkway on the edge of the university grounds. By manning tables, handing out leaflets, collecting donations, and recruiting members for politically driven organizations and causes, students were active in getting the word out about a number of issues there. So when the university informed them this was no longer allowed because it encouraged unlawful activity by students that often led to arrests, students were outraged. The brick walkway was the best place to reach students, as everyone passed it on the way to and from classes, and banning their presence there would essentially cut off much civil rights protest discussion and support. Angered, students believed the university was taking away their constitutional right to free speech, so when the administration refused to reconsider, students realized they’d have to apply the methods they’d learned in civil rights protests to solve this problem.
Soon they were defying the rules, continuing to set up their tables on the walkway, but also in front of the administration building, something they’d never done before. What started as small acts of civil disobedience soon ballooned and garnered the attention of thousands of Berkeley students. They felt the university had overstepped, not only by policing what students advocated for, but by taking disciplinary action against students engaged in unlawful activity off campus grounds as well. This was much more than a campus issue.
For the next few months the UC Berkeley campus became home to the Free Speech Movement. Class attendance numbers were low, and the local police often responded to rallies and sit-ins. Soon media began covering the protests, carrying the campaign for free speech to cities, towns, and college campuses around the world.
After much fruitless back and forth with committees and school administration, student leaders of the Free Speech Movement, such as Mario Salvo and Arthur Goldberg, announced a rally and silent march. They wanted the march to bring together everyone in the university community who believed in the students’ right to free speech. The march wasn’t about global attention, or even disruption; it was about uniting people who might not share one another’s opinions, but who did share the belief that they had the right to express them. Movement leaders called for students to get permissions from professors to participate, and encouraged faculty to be monitors. Students, teaching assistants, faculty, and others in the community were being asked to take a side.
And on November 20, they did. Three thousand people moved as one from the student union plaza to University Hall, where the administration’s board of regents was holding a meeting about how to handle the Free Speech Movement t
hey believed had disrupted the campus for far too many months. Although the march did not change much policy that day, it did motivate the students to keep demonstrating and to stand together for a common belief.
After another few months of protest, and a new chancellor’s arrival, the university agreed to open select campus areas to students for social action. However, unlawful off-campus acts generated by on-campus activity would still be disciplined. It wasn’t everything the student leaders wanted, and free speech remains a hotly debated topic in schools, but the example the students of UC Berkeley set would help inform future protest movements on campuses across the country that still occur today. Above all, these students’ protest helped protect all people’s right to protest and speak up for what they believed in.
DELANO TO SACRAMENTO MARCH
Delano, California, to Sacramento, California
March 17 – April 10, 1966
I feel we have the same rights as any of them. Because in that Constitution, it said that everybody has equal rights and justice. You’ve got to make that come about. They are not going to give it to you.
—Larry Itliong
TOGETHER WE MARCH FOR OUR RIGHT TO ORGANIZE
“Welga!” shouted the Filipino farm workers, ready to strike. By September of 1965, they were no strangers to demanding a fairer wage. In the early 1900s, they’d come to California to become migrant workers. Most took the journey alone, believing America would be a land of opportunity. However, like other marginalized groups, they soon found America’s freedoms were not entirely for everyone.
Laws barred them from citizenship, voting, owning property, starting a business, and interracial marriage. This left many of the Filipino men poor and single. Farming was hard work for very little pay; without families to support them when they could no longer work, older men, known as “manongs,” would need to find another way to provide for themselves.
At the start of the 1965 grape-picking season, these workers went on strike demanding a pay increase in Coachella Valley, California. Growers agreed and increased wages from $1.25 to $1.40 per hour, which was better, though still well below a living wage. But a few months later, when workers asked growers in Delano, California, for a similar raise, the Delano growers refused. These growers had more power, influence, and the backing of the police and local officials.
The manongs, led by labor organizer Larry Itliong and the predominately Filipino Agricultural Workers Organization Committee (AWOC), decided to strike again. More than fifteen hundred Filipino workers picketed, but growers fought back through intimidation and violence, and eventually hired Mexican workers to take the strikers’ places.
Filipino labor organizers knew they were losing ground. They approached Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta—leaders of the mainly Mexican-American National Farm Workers Association (NFWA)—about joining their efforts. At first there was hesitation, but both communities wanted the same things—better wages, contracts, and overtime along with health care, restrooms, safer tools, more food, and adequate shelter. So Mexican workers voted and agreed, it was time to join the strike!
But when the picket line grew longer, growers grew tougher. They kicked laborers out of camps they’d lived in for years; shut off water, lights, and gas so workers couldn’t cook or bathe; and hired armed guards to intimidate strikers. So, in order for the strike to succeed, it needed to go beyond the reach of Delano, where growers had the power to quash it, to the public. Strikers called for a mass boycott of table grapes. Students flocked to Delano to join the picket lines, but the harassment and danger worsened.
Protest organizers determined that a march to Sacramento, the state capital, was the next best step. It would draw media attention, public support, and would also help put distance between strikers and the violence. Six months after the start of the strike, seventy-five farm workers began the three-hundred-mile march, walking single file along the roadway with the American, Mexican, and Philippine flags out in front. Starting on March 17, 1966, they marched through the “valley of their labor,” fifty-three towns in all. They depended on the generosity of strangers, churches, and civic organizations to provide food, water, and shelter. Like the March of the Mill Children and the Salt March, in each town they stopped to make speeches, educating the public about their cause, and support quickly grew. At the end of the twenty-five-day journey, ten thousand had joined the original seventy-five in la causa. Television cameras and journalists were there to document it all.
Marching was not the end of the fight, but it helped to spark renewed energy so farm workers could continue their tireless strike and boycott, and it provided the visibility they needed. Soon shoppers, grocery stores, and community markets refused to buy or sell California grapes. It took five years, but finally farm workers received their first contract from grape growers. In the process, their merged union, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), was also officially recognized and protected. And soon after, UFW members and volunteers built a government-supported housing complex for the retired manongs. Today, unions still struggle for recognition and to protect workers’ rights, just like these workers did so many years ago. But their years of tireless work in the fields and on the picket lines serve as an example of how much more we can accomplish when we all march together.
“THE MARCH AGAINST DEATH” MORATORIUM TO END THE WAR IN VIETNAM
Washington, DC
November 13–15, 1969
Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty.
—Ho Chi Minh
TOGETHER WE MARCH TO CALL AN END TO WAR
Thousands of miles from where the California farm workers were striking, the people of Vietnam were engaged in a struggle for independence, not unlike that of India in the early 1900s. The Vietnamese had been under French rule since the mid-nineteenth century, and although many Americans understood their desire to govern themselves, with the Cold War raging, the prospect of an independent Vietnam falling under control of Communist China or Russia seemed a far greater concern.
America’s involvement in the ongoing conflict was gradual. France eventually withdrew after years of fighting, but the American government still wanted to ensure the new independent Vietnam would be a democratic nation. Vietnam soon split in two. The north received aid from communist China and Russia, while the United States forged an alliance with South Vietnam. But leaders in both regions still wanted an independent and unified country. They just couldn’t agree on how that would look.
Soon US combat troops entered a war that had already cost US taxpayers millions of dollars and all too soon would also cost countless young lives, especially those of the poor, the working class, and minorities. For the first time, horrors of war were broadcast on every television, and much like the images of Black children in Birmingham being blasted by water hoses, seeing the graphic images of American bombings destroying homes, villages, crops, and lives caused many Americans to question what the US was truly fighting for. Opposition to the war had already been increasing on college campuses across the country for several years, but as more Americans lost their lives, support for the war continued to diminish. People of all ages and backgrounds took to the streets in varying forms of protest.
Then, during the weekend of November 15, 1969, they came together. Some estimates say half a million people descended on Washington, DC, to participate in the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. The moratorium—a pause or interruption in a person’s daily activities—was hosted by one hundred organizations that comprised the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. The focus of the weekend’s events was to demand that President Nixon work quickly to remove troops from Vietnam. At 6:00 p.m. on November 13, 1969, more than forty thousand demonstrators began marching in a single-file line that stretched for miles. A rectangular card around each protester’s neck displayed the name of an American soldier killed in Vietnam or the name of a Vietnamese village destroyed or bombed. The marchers started from Arlington National Cemetery
in Virginia and crossed over the Memorial Bridge, headed for President Nixon. When each person reached the sidewalk outside the White House, they paused and through a loudspeaker called out the name on their sign, intent on reaching the president’s ears in the Oval Office. Less than twenty-four hours later, hundreds of buses would line the sidewalk, separating the president from a disgruntled public.
Still, for almost forty hours, “March against Death” protesters called out the names of people and places senselessly lost before dropping their name card into one of eleven wooden coffins. The last name was placed inside at 7:30 a.m. on November 15, but a few hours later, throngs of demonstrators arrived at the Capitol for the start of a larger anti-war march and rally. Hundreds of thousands of people wanted Nixon to understand they opposed war. Led by three drummers and marching in rows of seventeen that were followed by the eleven coffins, which they intended to deliver to the White House, protesters screamed, “Peace now, peace now!”
Though many pro-war critics waited for violence to erupt as it had at other anti-war demonstrations, the crowds largely practiced the peace they were seeking, supporting the cause with their voices and their feet, not their fists.
Although the war continued for six more years, it was the dedication and resilience of protesters like these that gave Nixon no choice but to ultimately bring the war to a close. It is a reminder that the road to peace is often a long one, but peace is always worth marching for!