My journey began in Niagara Falls on Mackenna Avenue on Aug. 28, 1963.
Dad was always fixing something on that old house. Sometimes he'd drag the whole family into one of his projects, and this was a huge one, and we were all participating, whether we wanted to or not. I did not want to be doing what he had us all doing on that hot afternoon. My mind was somewhere else.
For days I had been hearing news reports about a planned march on Washington. There were rumors that a group from Niagara Falls was going to be taking a bus down there and I wanted to go with them.
I had cautiously brought the subject up among some of my schoolmates, but Martin Luther King was not a very popular subject with most of them. Some were openly hostile to the very mention of Dr. King's name, calling him a "commie."
Others referred to the march organizers as a bunch of "outside agitators," saying Washington was going to be destroyed by looters, that the march would disintegrate into a huge riot. Thousands of Negroes were going to be killed by the Klan before they even got there, according to one rumor. Others wouldn't have homes to return to when they got back. People who dared to go there would lose their jobs, I heard. Thousands were going to be arrested, beaten by the police, bitten by vicious dogs, just like we had seen on television!
Not a pleasant thought, indeed. So why would I, or anybody else, want to bother? "What's the point?" people asked, seeming surprised by my interest. I was not even sure myself. I just knew I wanted to be there. There was something compelling about it, some force that drew me in. It was a force I could not resist. I still cannot resist it.
President Kennedy, the darling hero of the Catholic Church, had tried to stop the march, but he could not, so said the rumors. He had supposedly put thousands of armed soldiers on alert, with orders to shoot anyone who got out of line.
I was careful in phrasing my questions about the march when we sat around the dining-room table for supper a few days before it was supposed to happen. The excitement was building. Nightly news reports were broadcast from the sides of the road where legions were literally marching on foot, walking all the way from Mississippi to Washington.
I wanted to go. I wanted to be there. I had to be there!
This was sounding more and more like something really important, a once-in-a-lifetime, history-making event. I just had to be there, but I had to get permission, of course, from my parents.
I had learned how to negotiate around the dining-room table for favors. There was a pecking order. We were well-trained in table manners. No elbows on the table. No talking with food in your mouth. Bow your head while Dad says grace. Make the sign of the cross when he was finished whispering his prayer (I never did quite understand exactly what in the world he was actually saying). Don't reach over someone else's plate, ask for things to be passed to you. Don't chew with your mouth open. Don't get up from the table without first asking to be excused. Don't argue at the table. Speak clearly when Mom or Dad asks a question. Make sure your homework from the day before was handed in. Don't lie. Don't ever lie. Eat everything on your plate. Everything! I took a few deep breaths and started my soliloquy.
I announced that I had done all of my chores, even some extra things that I had not been told to do. I had gotten good marks at school. I took back my library books on time, and I helped Mrs. Ellis, our neighbor, take her groceries into her house, and I even put the nickel she gave me in my church envelope for Sunday.
I swallowed hard, so hard everybody at the table could hear it. My Adam's apple caught somewhere it was not supposed to be, taking my quivering voice up at least two octaves.
Then I asked if I could go to the march on Washington.
To be continued next week.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 26 2003 |