A First Person Account on the March on Washington

I saw Martin Luther King Jr. proclaim his Dream at the 1963 March on Washington.

King captured the nation’s attention, and his legacy ultimately became the focus of my career. In the days before the march, however, my understanding of his significance changed when I met Stokely Carmichael, a young black activist affiliated with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Stokely made me aware that King was only one aspect of a sustained Southern freedom struggle to overcome the Jim Crow system of racial segregation and discrimination. Although I continued to admire King, I learned that the brash protesters and “field secretaries” of SNCC were key components of a community of dedicated activists I would come to know as the Movement. They exemplified the rebelliousness and impatience I felt as a teenager.

I had grown up as one of a handful of African American residents in Los Alamos, a small New Mexico town far from the frontlines of the Southern protest movement. Nonetheless, I paid close attention to news about civil rights activities— especially when black students near my own age were involved. When I was in eighth grade, the Little Rock Nine students were braving white mobs to desegregate Central High School. While I was in high school, I read about the student-led lunch- counter sit-ins and the freedom rides. During the months before the 1963 march, President John F. Kennedy stirred me with his televised speech urging Americans to see civil rights as a “moral issue,” although I wondered why it took him so long to recognize this. While courageous young black activists were battling entrenched racial oppression and capturing the nation’s attention, I resigned myself to return to Albuquerque for my second year at the University of New Mexico (UNM).

Several days before the March on Washington, I traveled to Bloomington, Indiana, as part of UNM’s delegation to the National Student Association’s (NSA) annual convention. Stokely, a Howard University senior, was representing SNCC. I was vaguely aware of SNCC’s involvement in the sit-ins, freedom rides, and Deep South voting rights campaigns, but Stokely seemed to be a knowledgeable Movement veteran. His lanky build, intense demeanor, and copious confidence made him a magnet of attention at convention sessions and impressed me to the point of envy.

As the only black student on the UNM delegation to the NSA conference, I felt a special responsibility to inform myself about the convention’s most contentious issue: whether the organization should support the upcoming March on Washington. I listened as Stokely insisted that the NSA not only back the march but also give financial support to SNCC. His arguments were peppered with sardonic criticisms of cautious liberalism....

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