An Eventful 48 Hours: DuBois Dies and King Leads March on Washington
by: Dr. Clint Wilson
In one of the most eventful two-day time periods in history, Black America, and indeed the world, experienced both the death of W. E. B. DuBois and the 1963 ''March on Washington'' highlighted by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's epochal ''I Have A Dream'' speech.
At the beginning of the march on the nation’s capitol the assembled crowd of more than 200,000 people was informed of the great DuBois’ death in Accra, Ghana. The news added poignancy to the momentous event and was on everyone’s heart when Dr. King took the podium to deliver his most famous speech.
Although he didn’t live to know of King’s speech DuBois would surely have agreed with its premise that the ''souls of Black folk,'' as he termed it, yearned for the day when color would no longer be the most pressing issue facing the United States.
The Black Press, of course, covered the events of this most momentous 48 hours.
MARCH ON WASHINGTON
Black and white Americans joined bands and hearts Wednesday in this city which to much of the world stands as the citadel of democracy, the symbol of free men.
Time erodes memories, even newspapers grow yellow with the years and film ages, but to the 210,000 men, women and children who were there for the March for Jobs and Freedom, this is one memory that simply cannot die.
If there were tears in the eyes of strong men, they did not weep because of sadness.
If they wept it was because the colored people of this nation have come of age, they have grown up, they have gotten off their knees and now they stand tall and proud.
There is much that can be said of the March - but what words have greater meaning than that this was one of our nation’s finest hours.
A time to be remembered when hearts were moved and the whole world had to stop and listen.
Start at the beginning and start in Baltimore on Wednesday and there is Lafayette Square, and the several thousand people who filled it long before the 7:30 a.m. departure.
The crowd in the square began to pull away with a precision close to that of an army on the move. There were some minor delays but the volunteer workers moved quickly, and the caravan began to roll toward the seat of our national government.
In Bus 1009 rode Troy Brailey, leader of the Maryland March, along with a corps of local newsmen and members of the American Negro Labor Council.
Once on the Washington Expressway the riders passed a walker who plodded doggedly ahead, along the shoulder of the road, with a sign that said he too would be in Washington on this day.
This was no pleasure outing, but something that went much deeper. Let Eddie Pleasant, a steelworker from Sparrows Point, tell it.
He missed a day of work to ride to the March in Washington. He left his home at 5:15 a.m. to make certain he would be on time. With him were his daughter Diane and his wife, Alice. Ask him why the sacrifice and his answer is simple but eloquent: ''I had to.''
It was 9:40 when the bus with Mr. Brailey reached Washington and was halted by a military policeman and a traffic officer.
A quick check and the bus was waved on its way with a motorcycle escort.
The foreign press was there too - La Prensa from Argentina, the BBC from London, the Drum from Africa.
On this plot of ground the eyes of the world were focused, and what they saw were joyful and dedicated people whose hearts were too filled with the beauty of the moment to have room for anything else.
They were there from the big cities and the small cities, neatly dressed with a sense of dedication that spread upward and outward. In other parts of Washington the city seemed almost asleep.
The streets were virtually deserted and in the government buildings that surrounded the line of marchers, those employees at work filled the windows to watch the greatest demonstration in the history of this nation.
From the very start it was evident that this would be a peaceful day, a day in which America could take pride. The marchers were determined that this would happen.
It was shortly after 11 a.m. when the first solid mass of marchers began to move away from the Washington Monument.
They stood in the square and waited patiently for their buses under a sky that promised a day of bright sunshine with only a faint kiss of haze.
Robert Massey, who lives in the 500 block N. Longwood St. had a handful of American flags that he was attempting to sell, but up until 7:30 a.m. business was slow. Only two flags sold.
The large March buttons with a black and white hand clasped tightly together were like white flowers floating in a sea of people.
On the grass in the square sat travelers with their boxes of lunch and their jugs of water. They sat and waited and perhaps they asked themselves why were they going?
What better answer than the one given by a man whose face was drawn with lines, not put there by age alone. ''Just being colored is reason enough to go''.
Shortly before 8 a.m. Mayor Theodore McKeldin with a black eye susan in his lapel and a smile on his face came on the scene to wish the marchers well.
''We cannot hide, even if we wished to do so, the shame we feel before the Almighty and the other nations of the world as a result of the inhumanity which has deprived some of God’s children of their rights.
''But we can take justifiable pride in the fact that in our land, the right of citizens to petition their government is still sacred, still available, and I would like to predict, still effective.''
At 8:15 the Rev. Frank Williams, president of the Interdenomination Ministerial with Mr. Brailey reached Washington and was halted by a military policeman and a traffic officer.
A quick check and the bus was waved on its way with a motorcycle escort. At every intersection stood a military policeman and an officer.
Most of the teams were integrated.
At 9:55 the bus pulled into a parking place near the Washington Monument.
Each of the buses discharged its passengers into a growing crowd that moved toward the monument, as smoothly as snow melts under the warmth of spring and the water slops down the mountainside to a waiting stream.
At the monument itself, the people stretched out in such numbers that they seemed as countless as shafts of wheat waving on a Kansas plain.
Clustered around the base of the starkly simple needle of marble, that pays honor to the man first called President of this country, some stood and some sat on the neatly cropped grass.
They heard a succession of artists entertain them as the loud speakers carried every syllable across the vast space to every ear.
Two who stood and listened were James Henson of the1500 block N. Pulaski St., and Cornelius Lawrence, 1500 block N. Carey St.
Henson and Thompson are unemployed but they marched as Henson put it, ''for all children.'' So, ''they will have it better than I.''
Dr. Dubois Dead at 95
ACCRA, Ghana - Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, eminent scholar and statesman, died here Tuesday night. The Government of Ghana in making the announcement, gave no cause of death.
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