March On Washington

AS THE CONTROVERSY continues over the Million Youth March that its conveners concede will draw only a small fraction of that number, one has to ask: Is marching overrated these days?The question is all the more relevant because we just marked the 35th anniversary of the mother of all marches, the one that took place in Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Originally called by labor leader A. Philip Randolph to demand "jobs and freedom," it eventually became a demand that the president and Congress enact civil rights legislation then languishing in committee.

WASHINGTON -- When Promise Keepers fills the National Mall with people and prayers today, it hopes to make history. Certainly, it's got the setup to do so.Just look at what the Christian men's group has assembled for its first national rally: 44 guest speakers, 11 JumboTrons (the group wanted a few extras, but the Rolling Stones had first dibs), 100-plus sound speakers, 24 generators (with hushed motors to preserve a prayerful ambience on the Mall), 210 phone lines, 130 stage lights, 1 million free Bibles, 1,500 portable toilets and much more.

WASHINGTON -- A few of us were sitting around the living room of Neal Grunstra's house discussing the lack of youthful political energy in this country."

NATION OF ISLAM leader Louis Farrakhan is trying his best to use the Million Man March as a springboard. He wants to be acknowledged as THE black leader. But while Mr. Farrakhan may have gained new respect from African Americans and others initially skeptical about the march, that does not mean he should now be treated like an incarnation of Martin Luther King.Many marchers went to Washington wishing it had been planned by someone other than Mr. Farrakhan. Most left the event heartened by what had transpired and giving credit to Mr. Farrakhan for having conceived the idea, but no more willing to be counted as followers of the NOI leader than they were before.

The Million Man March gave Louis Farrakhan his biggest audience yet and vaulted him into greater prominence as an African-American leader.But the Nation of Islam leader won't necessarily be able to harness all the energy created by Monday's rally, which drew at least 400,000 black men to Washington's Mall."

WASHINGTON -- Thirty-two years ago, trepidation filled Washington as the city braced for a massive march predominantly of black Americans demonstrating for civil rights and greater job opportunity. Fears were openly expressed of mayhem in the streets, but it didn't happen.What did happen was an overwhelmingly peaceful march of an estimated 200,000 blacks and whites, joyously clapping and singing in a festive celebration of racial unity. The highlight was the historic ''I have a dream'' speech by Martin Luther King Jr. preaching that unity.

Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. is not the kind of man to just go away, to leap willingly into that pit of oblivion that spectacular failure often opens beneath the feet of public figures.When he was fired last Aug. 20 as executive director of the NAACP, accused of mismanaging the organization's funds and in disgrace for surreptitiously trying to buy off a female aide who claimed he had sexually harassed her, many people expected to see the last of him.Many people were wrong.Ten months after losing the most prestigious job in the civil rights movement, the $200,000 salary that went with it, a living allowance, expense account and half a million dollars in life insurance, the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. is hard at work, trying to regain a national platform from which to air his views.

RETURNING home from reporting on the 1983 March on Washington, my head buzzed with images from the stage.This past week's Million Man March in Washington left me with very different images. Now, nearly a week after the gathering, the things most vividly etched in my mind took place far from the stage on the nation's Mall. Mostly they are unusually poignant events that created contemplative moments.Most of these were small acts, some of kindness, like the young man who gave his seat to an elderly woman on a standing-room-only train packed with march-bound participants.

Last year, Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam went on a national tour, asking thousands of black men to pledge that they would not -- in effect -- behave like beasts.At the Baltimore Arena, Minister Farrakhan asked each man to promise that they would respect their mothers, take care of their children, and refrain from slaughtering each other.Men of any other race or ethnicity would have reacted to such a request in one of three ways: they would have been dumbfounded, amused, or outraged at the suggestion that someone has to tell them to act like a human being.

Maryland organizers of the Million Man March are talking big numbers."We expect every African-American man to be in that march," said the Rev. John L. Wright, the march's state organizer. "It's an act of God."Mr. Wright predicts that 200,000 African-American men from Maryland will trek to Washington Oct. 16 to participate in the event, which is being promoted as a "day of atonement" that will display unity and economic strength.It remains to be seen whether organizers can approach Mr. Wright's goal, which would be more than one-third of Maryland's African-American men counted in the 1990 national census.

One was a Quaker, a nurse involved in the civil rights movement, sitting among the tens of thousands gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial. One was a New Yorker who had made a last-minute pilgrimage. Another was a seminary classmate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., standing near him on the platform, stepping closer as King strode to the podium - a sign of support for a man who was a lightning rod for controversy. And then there was the Rev. Vernon Dobson, a civil rights activist who worked with King, stunned as 250,000 people were hushed into silence by a sermon that revolved around four simple words.

Using a classic American tactic, immigrants have been demonstrating across the country, seeking changes in law and policy. They've been coming out by the tens of thousands - last week and again Monday - in cities such as Washington, New York, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles and Phoenix. And they are forcing local and national politicians as well as their constituents to sit up and take notice, while Congress struggles to come to some agreement on meaningful immigration reform. Some organizers of the recent demonstrations are comparing their efforts to the civil rights struggle and the pivotal 1963 March on Washington.

WASHINGTON - For all of the administration's insistence that its war in Iraq is not a rerun of Vietnam of 40 years ago, more signs are emerging that we're seeing, as eminent philosopher Yogi Berra once put it, "dM-ijM-` vu all over again." Belatedly but inexorably, the rash of American deaths this month - more than 30 so far, bringing the total to 1,823 - has hit the home front as seldom before in this war of President Bush's choice. The concentration of most of the victims in one Marine Reserve unit in Ohio has generated stories and interviews on television and in newspapers that further remind Americans of the price being paid.

WASHINGTON -- It's a little known fact that Martin Luther King Jr. didn't really lead the March on Washington. What actually happened is that the marchers, a quarter-million strong, grew impatient waiting for the event to begin and stepped off the curb ahead of schedule. When they found out what had happened, Dr. King and other march "leaders" had to scramble to catch up. Freedom was in the air and the marchers saw no need to wait for permission to move. Forty-one years later, that vignette from another era offers an irresistible analogy to frame what has been happening these last few days in San Francisco.

I WASN'T yet born when the original March on Washington drew 250,000 people to the Mall in 1963, seeking jobs and racial equality. But like so many African-Americans, I grew up with a special appreciation of this seminal event, grasped early on its historic gravity for our nation, and the world. So on Saturday, I hopped a train to Washington for the 40th anniversary of the march. It's hard to describe my mood that day, my exact feelings, only that an inexplicable stirring in my soul drew me. I knew I had to be there.

Walter Blasingame didn't take his wife to the March on Washington in 1963. If she had gone, she would have lost her job at an Annapolis doctors' office, he said. Blasingame, too, feared repercussions at his federal government post in a Navy research lab. But tonight -- in a ceremony at the county's community college marking the 40th anniversary of the watershed rally -- the Anne Arundel County government will officially commend Blasingame, 67, for attending the march. "I'll be there," Blasingame said, "and I'll be there remembering.

Forty years ago today, more than 225,000 people joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the "I Have a Dream" speech that would from that time on evoke the aspirations of those civil rights protesters. The march was inspired by A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and vice president of the AFL-CIO, who had first advocated such a march in 1941. He called that one off after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order prohibiting discrimination in hiring for defense plants.

Walter Blasingame didn't take his wife to the March on Washington in 1963. If she had gone, she would have lost her job at an Annapolis doctors' office, he said. Blasingame, too, feared repercussions at his federal government post in a Navy research lab. But tonight - the 40th anniversary of the watershed rally - Anne Arundel County government will officially commend Blasingame, 67, for attending the march, at a ceremony at the county's community college. "I'll be there," Blasingame said, "and I'll be there remembering."

Walter Blasingame didn't take his wife to the March on Washington in 1963. If she had gone, she would have lost her job at an Annapolis doctors' office, he said. Blasingame, too, feared repercussions at his federal government post in a Navy research lab. But tonight - the 40th anniversary of the watershed rally - the Anne Arundel County government will officially commend Blasingame, 67, for attending the march during a ceremony at the county's community college. "I'll be there," Blasingame said, "and I'll be there remembering."

Sherman Howell grew up in the segregated town of Arlington, Tenn., participated in civil rights marches in the 1960s and helped organize the March on Washington in 1963. When he was shopping for a home in 1971, he was looking for a place "that represented equality and respect." When Howell arrived in Columbia, he called off the search. "This is the place for me," said Howell, vice president of the African American Coalition of Howard County. "This is the type of place we were fighting and marching for."