Witnessing Dr King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech
Today marks 50 years since the landmark US Civil Rights-era gathering widely known as the March on Washington, and the delivery of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech to the 250,000 participants in front of the Lincoln Memorial.For Bermuda’s Reverend Cynthia Holmes, who travelled to Washington, DC to witness the epic assembly held to protest discrimination, joblessness and economic inequality faced by African Americans, the march — which set the stage for both the 1964 US Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act — was “a life changing event”.The prospect of hearing Civil Rights leader Dr King speak in the US capital was all the reason Rev Holmes, then the head of the Berkeley Institute’s Home Economics Department, needed to take the trip.“I had studied at Howard University — Washington events were prominent in my life,” she told The Royal Gazette. “Everybody knew it was going to happen. I was very aware of it.”The mass gathering, known in full as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, owed its origins to the labour movement as well as the fight against institutionalised racism in the Southern US led by Dr King.As August 28, 1963 drew near, the event gained impetus, driven in part by the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, in which President Abraham Lincoln ordered the freeing of America’s slaves.Rev Holmes stayed in the capital with a friend, near Washington’s National Mall area where the marchers congregated.Despite the avowed non-violence policy of Dr King and other leading Civil Rights leaders, many in the US feared the event could turn belligerent.Such concerns proved to be entirely unfounded and Rev Holmes — like the other participants — felt only exhilaration as the events of the day unfolded.“There was no apprehension, no fear of violence from my perspective,” she remembered.The gathering drew a significant numbers of white as well as black marchers. Rev Holmes recalled of the day: “The air was full of excitement, full of awe.“Everyone just felt good. I had come there purposefully to hear this great, great orator, and you just felt good to know you were in the presence of greatness.”Rev Holmes, née Bean, had just met “the love of my life” — Willis Holmes, an American whom she would marry two years later.“We were there, experiencing it from the point we wanted to be, down in front of one of the government buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue,” she said. “We were right there for it.”Although many Civil Rights groups and speakers participated in the event, it was future Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr King — head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — who would define the March in history with his “I Have a Dream” speech.That speech was the high point of the March and has since become legendary, generally regarded as Dr King’s finest and most rousing piece of oratory.Dr King’s impassioned call for an end to racism and the emergence of an America where individuals were judged not “by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character” is widely held to be one of the most significant speeches delivered in the US in the 20th century.“He got caught up in it,” Rev Holmes said. “He said, ‘I have a dream’ — and it just went on; everybody was carried away. Everybody kept quiet. We all wanted to hear what this great future was that was telling us to aim for. It was theatrical. He caught us in it. We were all ready to follow him — even though I had to go back to school in Bermuda.”Now 80, Rev Holmes — a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington — resides in Hyattsville, Maryland. She said attending the March ranked as one of the memorable experiences of her life.Asked what the event could teach today’s young Bermudians, she replied: “That they never not become complacent, and never become discouraged. Always keep their goals in view. You may not reach it the first year; you may not reach it the second year. You may never reach the goal. But that does not stop you from striving. And in your striving, you will impress upon someone else to continue with the great excitement that was given to us that day.”Community activist Dr Eva Hodgson, a close friend of Rev Holmes, said she was envious she hadn’t been able to attend the historic event.“The March became significant because of that movement of people,” Dr Hodgson said. “Movements are what make a difference; politicians don’t.”
As a black Bermudian in the US during the prelude to the March on Washington, former Premier Sir John Swan gained an appreciation for what was at stake in the American Civil Rights movement.
Looking back on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, led by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, Sir John recalled: “I experienced what was racist in America at that time.”
As a young student, Sir John lived in the segregated US South from 1952 to 1960.
“I lived in both North Carolina and West Virginia at that critical time,” Sir John told The Royal Gazette yesterday.
“I remember the attacks against black people that were taking place. By the time of the March, the process had just begun to unwind what should have been dealt with many, many years earlier.
“Martin Luther King and many others endured pain, they endured agony, in leading the movement towards the eventual passage of the 1964 US Civil Rights Act — landmark legislation that was, of course, preceded by the March and the famous ‘I Have A Dream’ speech on the National Mall.”
Dr King, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968.
In 1983 Sir John dined with Dr King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, during a stop in Atlanta, Georgia.
“I was fortunate to hear some of the personal aspirations that Dr King had for the movement,” he said. “She spoke of trying to ensure that Dr King’s legacy of human betterment was not lost.”
A later meeting with Lady Bird Johnson, widow of US President Lyndon Johnson, also gave Sir John some insight into the pressures he had endured from Southern members of his own party in stewarding the passage of the Civil Rights Act through the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The legislation outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and women in the United States. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public.
Mr Johnson was credited with remarking “We (the Democrats) have lost the South for a generation” directly after signing the Act into law but added that passage of the bill was one of the proudest achievements of his presidency.
Reflecting on today’s anniversary, Sir John said: “We must always be reminded of the past and be guided by events like the March as we steer our lives towards the future.”
