For a lot of the people who joined Al Sharpton's Reclaim the Dream rally and march, it was their first opportunity to experience something close to what people saw and felt when they marched in Selma, Ala., or sat in at Greensboro, N.C. As the marchers made their way from Washington's Paul Laurence Dunbar High School -- the first public high school for African Americans in the country -- to the National Mall and the future site of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, more and more supporters for conservative Fox News TV host Glenn Beck and backers of the conservative Tea Party watched from the sidewalks. Some wore T-shirts reading "Restoring Honor," the name of the Glenn Beck event that took place the same day.
The scene under the white-hot sun was surreal as the Glenn Beck and Tea Party supporters made two-fingered peace signs at the Reclaim the Dream marchers and sometimes offered a high-fisted show of purported support or even applauded. Organizers of Beck's event had advised participants not to start anything. Sharpton, president of the National Action Network and organizer of Reclaim the Dream, had done the same. But still, the feeling that oozed psychically from the conservative onlookers was anything but friendly. Many held up video cameras or shot pictures. Others looked on silently and smile-free.
Gwen Wardell-O'Neal of Hamilton, N.J., said she was happy that people who don't agree with other Americans can have such beliefs but not act on them. Regarding Saturday, Wardell-O'Neal, 58, said, "Even though there wasn't physical violence, there was a certain look."
Harry Johnson said he was happy the potential clash did not happen. Johnson is heading up the fundraising effort to open the King memorial on the Mall in the fall of 2011. King was a convener of the march and delivered his seminal "I Have a Dream" speech there. "Dr. King really stood for everybody," said Johnson, whose buildthedream.org fundraising effort is now $13 million from its $120 million goal.
King was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, as is Johnson. The fraternity launched the movement to build the memorial on a four-acre site. "Dr. King was a person who fought a war without any weapons, and his weapon was non-violence," Johnson said.Despite the peace, the day ended on a tense note as former D.C. delegate and longtime activist Walter Fauntroy collapsed and was taken away by ambulance. Local temperatures reached almost 90 degrees, and
many who took part in the march complained of the hot sun and dehydration.
Earlier in the day at the Dunbar rally, there were references to Beck's crew and his event, which, to the ire of many, took place on the spot where King spoke 47 years ago. Sharpton warned that Beck's supporters were touting state's rights and condemning the large role of the federal government, which is the opposite of King's call for the federal government to step in and enforce civil and human rights. "We never fired a shot, but we turned the social order upside down," Sharpton said. "You don't know who you're messin' with."
Referring to President Barack Obama's election and inauguration, NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous said it was a time when "the entire country felt united." But, he added, "for a year and a half, we've been subjected to small hearts and small minds on a small screen."
"Do not let anyone tell you that they have the right to take their country back," said Avis Jones-DeWeever, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women. "It is our country too," she said.
"They represent hate-mongering and angry white people," said Jaime Contreras, the D.C. representative for the Service Employees International Union. "All the happy white people are here."There were common themes: calls for African-American men to pull up their pants, for African-American youth in general to put down guns and pick up books, and for job creation. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the crowd that education is the civil rights issue of modern times. "Parents, turn off your TVs at night, read to your children. Be part of the solution," Duncan said, urging pastors and mentors to step up too. "We've been too complacent in creating drop-out factories."
Empowerment was a key theme too. Speaker after speaker told the audience that if they wanted to change things, they had to do it themselves. That was the message back in 1963 too, they said. "Lift up your voice, lift up your vote, because if you don't vote, you don't count," said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.There was an air of grass-roots unity. The speakers and marchers represented groups that sometimes have not agreed. There were two members of the administration, Duncan and Assistant Labor Secretary Bill Spriggs; Reclaim the Dream organizer and President of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation Melanie Campbell; National President of Delta Sigma Theta Cynthia Butler-McIntyre; radio personality Tom Joyner; radio host and activist Joe Madison; NAACP President Jealous; National Urban League President Marc Morial; and leaders from labor unions.
The Glenn Beck and Tea Party supporters would not have felt uncomfortable at the inclusive Reclaim the Dream event, said Caroline Brewer, spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "It wasn't a countermarch, but I think that the people who spoke showed up because they wanted America to know," she said.
Said Martin Luther King III in a speech at the site of his father's memorial: "We have to learn to agree without being disagreeable."
Those who had been at the original 1963 March on Washington talked about traveling in the backs of public buses to get to Washington from South Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia, and bringing along fried chicken legs and wings in brown paper bags. Back then, the streets of downtown Washington were sardine-packed with people heading to the march. The atmosphere Saturday didn't come close, they said.
Sammie Whiting-Ellis was living in Chicago back in 1963 and had flown in to Washington. "The mood was electric," said Whiting-Ellis, 64, who now lives in Washington. "Every generation was there."
Those who represent the generations after Whiting-Ellis might not have felt a similar electricity, but the march was thought-provoking, they said. Ernest Robinson is the type of person some of the speakers at the march were targeting, with their admonitions that young African-American men pull up their pants and inject some ambition into their lives. Robinson has already done that. At 27 Robinson, of Richmond, is a husband and the father of 13-month-old Kalia. He's a senior criminal-justice major at Virginia Union University and a member of the Marine reserves. He wore a suit on Saturday. He said he appreciated many of the messages from the march, but he also, when pressed, offered some advice for his predecessors.
"How much integrity would you have to go up to a person and tell them to their face to pull their pants up?" Robinson asked. "It's easy to say something from behind a microphone," he said. "It starts from here."
Melanie Eversley is a Maryland-based journalist who has covered politics and civil rights for almost 20 years.
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