Photo credit: National Archives
I pretended not to notice my mother at the water’s edge calling me to come ashore. During supper I had begged her to take us to the beach before sundown. I ducked under the waves and headed one last time for the sandbar. When I came up for air, I changed my mind and headed for shore. Everett McNair was talking with my mother, gesturing emphatically about something I knew I didn’t want to miss.
Whenever Everett McNair appeared on the beach, I found some excuse to be nearby. Like my father, he told captivating stories about things that mattered. Everett and his wife, Irene, had a cottage up the hill from ours and they came every summer from Alabama where he worked as chaplain of Talladega College. My father had told me that Talladega was one of the oldest historically Black colleges and that Everett, as a white man, considered it a great privilege to serve as chaplain.
Everett was a tall man in his mid-sixties. He seemed immeasurably old to me, as a fourteen-year-old, but his seniority only enhanced the prophetic powers I attributed to him. He had witnessed tumultuous upheaval in the South as the fortress of segregation was crumbling, and he had been one of the subversive agents working for that change.
As I grabbed a towel and threw it over my wet shoulders, I heard my mother complaining that my father had left for home in East Lansing to write his sermon and attend a Trustee’s meeting.
“I don’t know why Truman can’t take one or two Sundays off in the summer,” Mother said.
“I can relate to that behavior,” Everett said, shaking his head and laughing. “I’ve been a workaholic much of my life. One of the advantages of coming all the way from Alabama each summer is that I have no choice but to turn things over to others while we’re gone.”
Turning to me, Everett asked, “When do you go back to school?”
“I start high school next Tuesday,” I replied, hoping my voice didn’t betray my considerable anxiety about going to a new building full of students older than me.
“Do you think the three of us would have time to take a trip before you start school?” Everett dug his foot in the sand and kicked it in my direction.
I looked at my mother, wondering if they’d been talking about a trip. She hunched her shoulders.
“Tomorrow morning,” Everett said, “tens of thousands of people will be converging on Washington DC for the largest civil rights march in this nation’s history. What are we doing here on this beach in Michigan? We should be on our way to Washington.”
“How in the world would we do that, Everett?” Mother asked.
“I’ve talked with Irene and she’s more than happy to have Wendy and Stephanie stay with her at our cabin. It’s only 8:00 right now. If we head out by ten, we can make it to DC by the time the march starts.”
Mother turned to me, “What do you say, Melanie, should we do it?”
“Yes!” I shouted, thrilled to be included.
“Okay then,” she declared. “Give me a couple hours, Everett, so I can pack and get things around for us and the girls.”
It was close to midnight before we got on the road. Everett wouldn’t accept my mother’s offer to take our car. He insisted there’d be more room in his Impala to stretch out on the back seat to sleep. When Everett was driving, Mother frequently asked if he was having difficulty seeing the road or staying awake. It was unusual for her to relinquish the wheel and I knew she was anxious about how fast we were going. Everett seemed oblivious to it all and our Impala sailed over the Pennsylvania mountains through the night toward Washington, D.C. I rode shotgun most of the way, far more interested in hearing Everett’s stories than wasting time sleeping.
“My Dad told me that you were arrested last year at a sit-in. What was that like?”
“Well, we didn’t experience the kind of violence they suffered at the Woolworth’s counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. We didn’t have hot coffee poured on our heads or lit cigarette butts burned into our arms.”
“That’s what happened in Greensboro?” I asked, horrified, trying to imagine how I’d ever summon the courage to continue sitting at a lunch counter while being burned and scalded.
“Those students in Greensboro got badly beaten up. They sure did.” Everett reached for his mug of coffee and apologized for having nothing to offer me. I assured him all I needed was his story.
“Well, we’d certainly been spat upon often enough in demonstrations, so we feared the worst. The police were waiting for us when we arrived at the drugstore. They moved in…we went limp…they had to drag us to the paddy wagons. My head hit the pavement a few times as they dragged me but none of us was seriously injured. We decided to refuse bail and stay in jail.”
“Weren’t you afraid?” I asked.
“Oh yes. But we had each other to lean on. We prayed and sang together. We filled that jail with songs! Singing and praying kept our spirits high and pulled us through.”
Everett started humming. Then, right there in the car next to me, he sang out,
Ain’t gonna let segregation turn me round,
turn me round, turn me round.
Ain’t gonna let segregation turn me round,
I’m gonna keep on walkin’, keep on talkin’,
marching up to freedom’s land.
“Did you return to the lunch counters when you got out of jail?” Mother asked, sliding to the edge of the backseat so she could be part of the conversation.
“City officials imposed an injunction barring any form of demonstration in the city. We were pretty demoralized at first, but lo and behold, within a couple months, the public library opened its doors for the first time to Negroes and the merchants agreed to integrate their lunch counters.”
“That is so cool!” I shouted. “You won!”
Everett laughed and patted my arm. “Well, in a way we won, Melanie. But there is so much work yet to be done.”
“I know,” I said, gravely, regretting that I wasn’t old enough to be involved in sit-ins.
Staring at the taillights of the car ahead of us, I imagined my body going limp and my head hitting cement as I was dragged toward a paddy wagon with sirens blaring and lights flashing.
We were thirty miles from Washington, D.C., when the traffic began to slow to a crawl. Fortunately, we’d stopped for a pre-dawn breakfast, wanting to give ourselves plenty of time to make it to the Washington Monument Mall by the 10:00 a.m. starting time. By 8:30 a.m., traffic was excruciatingly sluggish. At 10:00, we were at a complete standstill at least one-half mile from the Mall.
“What are we going to do now?” I moaned. Panic flooded me. Had we come all this way to be stuck in a traffic jam?
“The only thing we can do,” said Everett grinning at me and pointing out the window. “We’re going to leave the car right here by the curb and walk…no, run with all those people headed to the Washington Monument.”
“Just leave the car?” My mother asked with alarm.
“Yes.” Everett opened his door and motioned for us to follow. “I see no other option.”
My mother took my hand, and we took off running with Everett leading the way. When we joined the throngs near the Monument, a volunteer handed us signs (“We Are Marching for Jobs and Freedom”) and motioned for us to veer to the left. Everett took my other hand and we fell into line, moving with the swelling crowds of people clapping, chanting, and singing. Volunteers in bright colored t-shirts directed us to a wide passageway between two rows of towering trees running parallel to the reflecting pool.
When we finally came to a stop we were on the other side of the trees, in the bright August sun, not far from the edge of the road directly in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Turning around I saw thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder for what seemed like miles, stretching all the way back to the Washington Monument and lining both sides of the massive reflecting pool.
Huge platforms for the speakers, singers, and camera crews had been constructed halfway up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Just as Everett had experienced during his time in jail, music wrapped around us and filled the air that afternoon. I sang full-throated and swayed to songs led by Harry Bellefonte, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. My parents often played albums by Odetta, so I clapped and threw my arms in the air when she stepped to the microphone and her deep voice rang out: If they ask you who you are, tell them you're a child of God." When Mahalia Jackson sang, I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me as the exquisite harmonies of people around me rose and fell. I’ve been ‘buked and I’ve been scorned, I’ve been talked ‘bout sure as you’re born.
Many of the speakers were unknown to me, but I recognized the name Norman Thomas when he was introduced. My father often spoke of his respect and admiration for Norman Thomas, who left the ministry to engage in full-time activism as a Socialist, pacifist crusader for racial justice. I was thrilled to see Jackie Robinson in person and hear him declare, “We cannot be turned back.”
I knew we were standing in a choice location, but as the day wore on, I felt envy for people who were sitting at the edge of the reflecting pool, splashing water on their faces, arms, and legs. We hadn’t thought to bring lawn chairs so we had to stand or sit on a small patch of grass.
By midday the high August sun was scorching and the humidity thick. People were milling and fanning themselves while speaker after speaker came to the microphone. Volunteers came through the crowd periodically asking us to move back so that ambulances could reach people fainting from the heat.
Suddenly, people rose to their feet and pointed at the stage. “It’s him. It’s him!” The milling and talking ceased. A hush fell over that great assembly. No one moved. I could swear that even the babies stopped crying as Dr. King began to speak.
“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation…”
Children were hoisted onto their parents’ shoulders. People leaned into each other, clasping hands, locking arms.
“This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice…”
Dr. King’s lilting cadence rose and fell across the reflecting pool and ricocheted off distance buildings. Black elders on every side of me raised their palms toward the heavens.
“Yes. Yes.”
“It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity…”
“That’s right, now.”
“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.”
“Speak the truth, speak the truth.”
Dr. King declared that the Constitution was a “promissory note” guaranteeing all citizens the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.”
The crowd roared, “Yes, it has. Yes, it has.”
Dr. King pledged to carry the struggle forward until justice reigns and the dream is fulfilled. The crowd responded rhythmically, echoing words and phrases, calling out to him to take his time and preach the dream.
I listened intently to his words but I wasn’t watching the speaker’s stand. I was captivated, enthralled by the people in front, in back, and on all sides of me. Young and old, weeping and laughing, embracing each other, raising their arms and fists high, their faces turned to the sky.
“When we allow freedom to ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’"
At the conclusion of Dr. King’s speech, Bayard Rustin and A. Phillip Randolph challenged us all to take a pledge, promising we would carry the message of this revolution back to our communities. I felt ready and eager. People reached out to join hands. I stood between my mother and a young Black man with a son perched on his shoulders. I held their hands tight as A. Phillip Randolph read the pledge slowly, emphasizing each and every word of this solemn vow.
“I pledge to carry the message of the March to my friends and neighbors back home and arouse them to an equal commitment and equal effort… I will work to make sure that my voice and those of my brothers [and sisters] ring clear and determined from every corner of our land. I pledge my heart and my mind and my body unequivocally and without regard to personal sacrifice, to the achievement of social peace through social justice.”
“How do you pledge?” asked Bayard Rustin.
With that mighty throng of 250,000, I threw my head back and shouted, “I do pledge..”