Remembering '63 civil-rights march

The history of the American civil-rights movement turns middle-aged today: It is the 40th anniversary of the 1963 civil-rights march on Washington.

Arguably, the march was the most critical moment in the battle for equal rights for black Americans.

Certainly, there already had been several important events in the civil-rights movement before Aug. 28, 1963. Bus boycotts in the 1950s. Lunch counter sit-ins in 1960. The Freedom Riders in 1961. The Birmingham riots and the assassination of civil-rights worker Medgar Evers in May-June 1963.

But the March on Washington drew an estimated 250,000 people of all races (an estimated 25 percent were white). It was televised nationally. It was held in the nation's capital as lawmakers debated the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And the march was the stage for the famous "I Have a Dream" speech by the late Martin Luther King Jr. In 16 minutes of powerful oratory, King enthralled listeners with his dream that someday all Americans would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

"Dr. King's speech became the single most famous utterance of the civil-rights movement," said Hunt Hawkins, a Florida State professor of English who attended as a college student. "There had been marches on Washington since the beginning of the country. But this was the biggest civil-rights march to that point."

Hawkins, who still has his black-and-white button from the march, is one of several Tallahassee residents who attended the march and shared their memories on this 40th anniversary.

King, other speakers, motivational for young couple

Connie and Charles Evans, married 36 years, were high-school sweethearts in Durham, N.C., when they attended the march.

Charles, current president of the Tallahassee chapter of the NAACP, already had helped picket and eventually close a whites-only ice cream parlor in Durham. His future wife was not as politically active, but she and her sister, Vivian, eagerly joined Charles and other members of their church for the bus ride to Washington.

"We knew it was probably the most important thing that had happened in civil rights," said Connie, 57, a former Florida Department of Education official.

The couple enjoyed the big-name entertainers (Bob Dylan; Odetta; Peter, Paul and Mary) who performed at the Washington Monument. They joined the crowd in singing civil-rights standards as people marched to the Lincoln Memorial for speeches. They were awed by the slate of civil-rights leaders.

"The opportunity to see all those famous people (in person) was phenomenal," Connie said. "Now, you can turn on the TV and see notable people all the time. But in the 1960s, you just didn't see (civil-rights leaders) on TV."

They remember how the march came off peacefully. Like many in the march, they had been instructed beforehand by leaders to observe the tenets of non-violent protest. Washington officials delivered the promised large contingent of police and security officers.

"There were zero problems," said Charles, director of graduate programs and a marketing professor at Florida A&M University's School of Business and Industry.
"Everyone was on their best behavior," agreed Connie.

Both remember King's famous speech - though Charles concedes he did not truly recognize its significance until later years.

"If someone had asked me that day who had the greatest speech, I couldn't have recognized (King) any more than the rest of them," said Charles, 58. "To me, it was motivational to hear all the speakers. We had been confined to Durham and North Carolina issues. But to hear speaker after speaker talk about all the issues of civil rights across the nation was very moving."

Organizer says King had clear vision of march's purpose

Jack Sisson was an insider at the march. Trained as a Catholic priest, Sisson was the top assistant to Matt Ahmann, head of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, which helped plan the march.

While he mainly worked with King's right-hand man, Andrew Young, the future United Nations ambassador, Sisson came to know all the principals such as King, Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis and Bayard Rustin.

"Certainly, Rustin (the official leader) and the others had a great deal to say," Sisson said of the march's organization. "But I felt King was the leader. He knew what he was doing, and he worked hard at it."

Ironically, Sisson saw little of the march. After listening to Peter, Paul and Mary sing at the Washington Monument, Sisson returned to headquarters at the Hilton Hotel.

"I had to man the phones in case there was a riot, in case of problems, in case of whatever," said Sisson, 77. "I watched the speeches on TV."

Sisson spent a decade in the civil-rights movement, helping integrate Catholic schools in his native Pensacola, then joining the Catholic Conference, with whom he participated in all the famous demonstrations of the era. In 1972, he became legislative liaison for Florida's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (now the Department of Children & Families).

Now retired, Sisson said the 1963 march was "critically important."

"It told the establishment that there were people willing to buck the system and that they would buck it peacefully," Sisson said. "It said (the movement) would go on."

"I knew it would go down in history"

Many predicted the march would erupt in violence, either from the marchers or those opposed to the march. Many businesses and government agencies in Washington closed that day or urged their workers to take the day off.

Barbara Judd was an investigative reporter for the National Education Association - and though she didn't go to work, she went to the march.

"I was nosy. I wanted to see what it was all about," said Judd, now 73 and a retired writer for Association publications. "A lot of people were afraid. But I thought, what's wrong with having a march?"

Judd remembers people jumping into the capital's Reflecting Pool to cool off. She remembers the entire event as orderly: "After the speeches were over, everyone walked back together to the assembly point."

Most of all, she remembers King's speech.

"Even when I heard it, I knew it would go down in history," Judd said. "It was the way he gave it; people reacted."

A chance encounter with Wilt; a march to remember

Of all the celebrities at the march, Harold Ford remembers most a basketball player: the late Wilt Chamberlain. Ford met the 7-foot NBA star while he and his brother, Ron, pretended to be reporters during the march.

"We talked to a lot of people. We even had a camera, though it ran out of film," said Ford, 61, an administrator at Florida A&M. "(Chamberlain) said he was glad to be there. It was a fun thing."

Ford was then a college student at Millersville (Pa.) College. A native of Lancaster, Pa., he was joined by two brothers and his mother, Viola. His mother, a nurse who raised 10 children, became famous when a photo of her escorting a blind man down the march route was published in Life magazine.

Ford remembers the joy of the event, the big-name entertainers and the crowd singing civil-rights songs.

"There was so much enthusiasm," Ford said. "There were people from all over the country, all over the world, all races. It gave you a sense that things could work out."

But mainly he remembers how the singing stopped as everyone marched to the Lincoln Memorial to hear the speakers. One news report said all that could be heard was the shuffling of feet.

"It was all very solemn when we marched, and very sincere," Ford said. "People walked with a purpose. I think the silence spoke to the seriousness of the event."