Building on a dream preached in 1963
History of racist violence and mass protests against it echo through U.S.
WASHINGTON—“Fifty- Seven years ago, in 1963, there was a struggle in Birmingham, Alabama. There was the assassination of Medgar Evers, the head of the Mississippi NAACP. In the middle of struggle and hurt, they came to Washington,” civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton said Friday afternoon, standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before an estimated crowd of 50,000.
“Because they came in ’63, we were able to come back in 2020,” Sharpton said. “They opened the door for us, but there’s still some doors we have to open.”
He was speaking on the anniversary of that famous civil rights March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech that preceded the civil rights and voting rights legislation of 1964 and 1965. That speech has passed into the mythology of modern U.S. history, taught to every child in American schools, played on recordings over loudspeakers at protests, quoted in political speeches more often than the words of most presidents.
Black Republican Sen. Tim Scott invoked it during Donald Trump’s nominating convention in Washington this week: “Voters judged me on the content of my character, not the colour of my skin.” White Republican congressional nominee Madison Cawthorn talked about it in his speech to the convention. “MLK’s dream is our dream,” he said.
It was a week in the U.S. that might have served as a reminder that the dream has not been realized. The shooting of Jacob Blake by a police officer Sunday night kicked off a week of protest and civil unrest. People marched in the streets by day. Buildings burned by night. A vigilante shot three protesters, killing two of them. Major sports leagues shut down in protest.
America’s history of racism and violence, and of mass protest against them, has been echoing loudly throughout this summer, after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. Those echoes were all the louder this week.
On the steps with Sharpton on
Friday, Floyd’s sister Bridget Floyd summoned that history. “How will the history books remember you? What will be your legacy? Will future generations remember you for your complacency and your inaction, or will they remember you for your empathy, your leadership, your passion?” Recalling King making history in 1963, she said, “We’re here right now and have the power to make it happen.”
King was condemned in his own time, registering a disapproval rating of 75 per cent in one 1968 poll. And though he was name-checked at Trump’s convention, today’s protest movement was condemned repeatedly from the same podium: Vice-President Mike Pence scoffed at the idea America suffers “systemic racism”; Donald Trump Jr. equated “peaceful protest” with rioting, looting and vandalism; a New York police union representative mirrored the chants of the protesters, saying, “We can have four more years of Donald Trump, or you can have no safety, no justice and no peace.” Trump himself said late Thursday night on the White House lawn, “I say very modestly, I have done more for the African-American community than anyone since Abraham Lincoln.” Of the summer of protest, he said, “When there is police misconduct, the justice system must hold wrongdoers fully and completely accountable, and it will. But what we can never have in America, and must never allow, is mob rule.” He characterized the protesters as “anarchists, agitators, rioters, looters, and flag-burners.”
Less than 12 hours later, thousands gathered blocks away from where Trump had spoken for Sharpton’s anniversary march — a “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” Commitment March co-hosted by Martin Luther King III, and attended by the families of Floyd, Blake, Breonna Taylor and many others who have become sadly famous as victims of police violence. An estimated 50,000 Americans had come from Texas and New York, California and Connecticut. They lined up for blocks to get onto the Mall, and then gathered around the reflecting pool carrying signs bearing Jacob Blake’s name, flags that said Black Lives Matter, and wearing T-shirts bearing the image of George Floyd.
From the stage, Sharpton addressed Trump, challenging his characterization of protests. “We will speak against the looting, but when will you speak against the shooting?”
Many in the crowd told me they, too, opposed rioting. But they refuse to let their message be summed up that way. “We love the police. We want them on our side. But we gotta get rid of the bad police,” said Frederick Mason, who had driven from New Jersey to be there. “There needs to be better accountability around police brutality.”
Born in 1957, Mason grew up in the Jim Crow south. He said the dream King articulated remains a work in progress. “There’s a lot a lot of things still have to be done. That’s what I’m going to say, a lot of things. Martin was an amazing man, but so was Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, some other great leaders we’ve had,” he said. “We have a litany of people who have expressed the need to take their foot off our necks. Hopefully, we’ll go forward.”
Hopefully. That’s the spirit in which Jasmine Harris of Connecticut said she drove six hours to be at the march. “Do we have a lot of work to do? Yes. We have a lot of work to do. We are a work in progress. We’re not where we should be, but we’re not where we used to be.” Those gathering here Friday on the anniversary of King ’s speech, and those who have been gathering across the country this summer, were accepting the legacy of their history, trying to bend it further towards progress, Harris said. “The dream lives on.”
That was the message Sharpton focused on, too. “We are the dream keepers, which is why we come Friday, Black and white, and all races and religions and sexual orientations. To say this dream is still alive. You might kill the dreamer, but you can’t kill the dream,” Sharpton said. “We’re gonna stand up, even when our legs are tired. We’re gonna make this dream come true.”