Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, greets the Rev. Al Sharpton, president and founder of Harlem-based National Action Network.
Coalitions rally in time-tested place of marches current now with ‘Reclaim the Dream’ and ‘Restoring Honor’
By Albert C. Jones
America, The Diversity Place
DUNBAR HIGH SCHOOL, Washington, D.C. — The anatomy of a protest march, something the nation is quite familiar with, meant for observation and interpretation, if not participation, has its disparate parts, iconic voices, merged elements that intersect here at the seat of American governance.
This is not August 1963. Those gathered in this moment are not assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Is there another need to replicate that precious moment of transformation — one time tested for sure, honored and held up as an undeniably true American moment?
Perhaps in the highly charged world of the body politic, they are organized to create a media moment, cursory as it is and anxious as it might be. Is this a pressing need to be counter-reactive in the age of President Obama? Should this be seen as the first phalanx in the defense of Obama? In the “Audacity of Hope,” it would seem from his experiences as a community organizer in Chicago, these are they.
This morning, however, is different. Certainly by now time has rendered harmless all detractors of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Both Lincoln and King have been vetted from here to eternity.
Truth about it, this is an academic moment as much as it is a lineage moment. Reprising even a semblance of the great March on Washington is too compelling not to come and, perhaps, too unforgiving to miss the opportunity to chronicle another moment in which Americans rally to stand up for what they believe. Today, for sure, there are iconic voices of conservatism, swaying to one side, and iconic voices of social-justice and remembrance, swaying to the other side.
“Reclaiming the Dream” or “Restoring Honor” — the journalism decision of which venue would provide the best story — is ultimately rendered by a loyalty to history and an allegiance to continuity.
As time plays out, it is revealed that this is not a single-source protest indicative of “we shall overcome” marches held here and many other places elsewhere in the past, remembering now upon whose shoulders that scores of battles fought and victories were won.
For sure, these are the catalytic ingredients that are used to stirring, elements of the phalanx, older forces mixed with new forces, organized, and now accepted because they have organized their own numbers and evolved into speaking with a collective voice, formerly wholly shunned and left out in the past. Knowing is in the telling and then voices get inextricably linked in the ever-widening circle.
Some with CEO roles in the nation’s benevolent organizations — hammer that breaks rock into little pieces — came on jetliners to make their statements of three minutes or less, sayings, for many, brought out of storage since the last protest rally and march.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, president and founder of the Harlem-based National Action Network, called for this rally at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in the District of Columbia. It has been branded a march to “Reclaim the Dream.” How wonderful it is to muster a gathering wrought from people bridges to people, connecting folks from near and far. Besides countering what Glenn Beck is doing today on the National Mall, Sharpton’s march is designed to reclaim the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and “commemorate the 47th Anniversary of the March on Washington.”
At the conclusion to the March on Washington, Dr. King delivered the illustrative and nation binding “I Have a Dream” speech.
“Reclaim the Dream?” The ears hear and discern hyperbole, as if what is happening today on the National Mall might somehow blight in the national conscience or tarnish in the national image what the leadership of Dr. King means to America. In these times, one wonders, aren’t there plenty of victories to celebrate along with cyclical anxieties?
Listening to their voices — they come as rapid fire as three minutes allow — immediacy hoped for in the long-awaited ultimate solution was not heard, although some hinted at it.
What was heard, however, was a splintered agenda from disparate voices representing many different causes. (Not to be missed, this approach attracts stars from the galaxy and not just limits of the constellation.) Choice words are being uttered and there is absolutely nothing wrong with what is heard. Among here this morning are some of the most gifted coalition builders in the history of the nation. If not them personally, then in the legacy of the organizations they represent. In short, they are masterful at what they do.
(The regret, personally, is the lack of a groundswell around the most pressing agenda item facing the nation.)
In the age of speakers trained to give “sound bites,” one wonders if their praises and rhetorical licks are as meaningful as what is being proffered at Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor?” Whatever is to be said about Beck, ironic, and at the same time beguiling, awfully uninformed but using the medium to get his message out, must include that he is on the other side of the divide. His energetic means to a message delivered daily through a talk show on cable television, radio affiliates across the nation and public speaking tours, is about returning America to what it used to be.
His mixed message comes with pratfalls without knowing or seemingly caring what that might mean to everyone in the nation, even the several thousand gathered here across town.
Whatever Beck’s purpose is and it seems apparent that he wants to rule the nation himself or be in partnership with the next hand-picked ruler. His us against them approach is obvious and will in the end widen the divide from those desperately in need of leadership.
Again, should this moment be interpreted as the first phalanx in the defense of Obama or is this an authentic moment to “Reclaim the Dream?” In all honesty, there is adoration for the dream and reverence for the dreamer. Witness to the life committed, the body of written work and spoken words, legacy with the holiday, both national and international, street signs all across America and the monuments mean “Reclaiming the Dream” has buoyancy, if only as a device in the technical age of the sound bite?
(The MLK Memorial on the National Mall remains under construction.)
The most meaningful question, being this close to the seat of power, is what about the children and those gaps in education during times of unmatched wealth and unlimited spending? Still, these are they, a who’s who among activists with national platforms, stewards and speakers who had three minutes to deliver their message, the one’s sent up to be counted and to present community ideas and to inflect upon the body politic.
Of course, the last speaker, the Rev. Al Sharpton, before the start of the march, him leading them arms chained together, needs no introduction. Sharpton will lead the people from here to the spot near the Tidal Basin on the National Mall where the memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is being erected. These are they, a roster of who’s who in America. Leaders, here to represent their causes, introduced by Joe Madison, the talk show host coast-to-coast on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio channel 169 and locally here on WOL-AM.
These are they — who’s who among community-minded leaders; all are activists perched on national platforms. March etiquette allowed three minutes per person, lest the band begins playing, softly at first, and then with volume to drown out if the talker doesn’t give way to introduction of the next speaker. These are they, but who are they and from what platform do them come to “Reclaim the Dream?”
Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, founder with her husband, Tom Skinner, of the Skinner Leadership Institute (SLI), is introduced to give the invocation. SLI is a leadership development organization for leaders who operate in technical and moral excellence through national outreach to “leaders of our nation, leaders in the church and leaders among youth.”
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, formerly the chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools, is being brought forward in this story, out of sequence because he is in a position to make better all schools in America. Perhaps his is the continuity of struggle come forward from August 1963 and Dr. King’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Education, he tells the gathering, is the civil rights issue of this generation.
Duncan says to the crowd: “Parents: Turn off the television. Educators: We have to stop making excuses,” he says. “The dividing line in our country today is less around white and black and more about educational opportunity. We’ve been too satisfied with second-class schools.”
Larry Handfield is a trustee on the board of Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. He is an attorney by profession with a practice in Miami. Handfield used his sound bite to contextualize Secretary Duncan. “Part of the dream has become a reality but other parts have not,” he says. “In this country still today there are cities where far less than 30 percent of black males are graduating high school. Therefore, the dream is not yet complete.”
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton spoke as the Congresswoman, now in her tenth term, representing the District of Columbia.
Janet Murguia is president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, headquartered in offices in nearby the Raul Yzaguirre Building. NCLR, which also has offices in several major U.S. cities, traces its origins to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, as well as to previous efforts that preceded World War II, such as those related to early school and housing desegregation.
Benjamin Todd Jealous is president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He is the 17th president and the youngest in the history of the 101-year-old organization, now headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.
Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League, the 100-year-old civil rights organization which advocates for African Americans and fights racial discrimination. It is headquartered in New York but has affiliates offices throughout the United States. Like his father before him, he is a former mayor of New Orleans.
Since 2003, Morial has expanded the NUL’s work around an empowerment agenda, “which is redefining civil rights in the 21st century with a renewed emphasis on closing the economic gaps between whites and blacks, as well as rich and poor Americans.”
Melanie L. Campbell is the president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and Convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable Intergenerational Public Policy Network. It is headquartered here in Washington. Campbell has served in the civil rights, social justice, youth and women’s rights movement for more than 20 years and is “known for her ability to build diverse coalitions that bring people together for the common good.”
Donna Payne is associate director of diversity for the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, which represents a grassroots force of more than 750,000 members and supporters nationwide as the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization. Since its founding in 1980, “HRC envisions an America where LGBT people are ensured of their basic equal rights and can be open, honest and safe at home, at work and in the community.”
Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever is executive director of the National Council of Negro Women Inc. Founded in 1935, NCNW’s mission is to lead, develop, and advocate for women of African descent as they support their families and communities. NCNW has 39 national affiliates and more than 240 sections.
Bishop Dennis V. Proctor is the presiding prelate for the Western Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. The Western Episcopal District is made up of six Annual Conferences spread across the West Coast of the United States, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Nevada.
Ed Shultz is host of “The Ed Show” on MSNBC and hosts a syndicated radio program, which airs weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. It has a weekly audience of more than 3 million listeners on 100 stations across the country, according to the Web site.
Tom Joyner is founder, chairperson and majority owner of REACH Media and hosts the Tom Joyner Morning Show heard on stations throughout the U.S. The company produces BlackAmericaWeb.com. The Tom Joyner Foundation awards scholarships to students who attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
John Boyd is founder and president of the National Black Farmers Inc. based in Baskerville, Virginia, where he operates a 300-acre farm. NBFA was founded in 1995 “to encourage the participation of small and disadvantaged farmers in gaining access to resources of state and federal programs administered by the United States Department of Agriculture and to communicate and educate our community through effective outreach and technical assistance.”
As a graduate, Robert Bates has come home at Dunbar High School. He returns affiliated with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, also based in the District of Columbia. James Brady is the former press secretary for President Ronald Reagan. He was shot and left permanently disabled when Reagan was shot by John Hinckley in 1981.
Martin Luther King III is president of the Center for Nonviolent Social Change Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a living memorial dedicated “to research, education and training in the principles, philosophy and methods of Kingian nonviolence.”
These are they, many more for sure, as seen and heard at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in the District of Columbia on Saturday, August 28, 2010.
Donna Payne, associate director of diversity, represents Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign and its grassroots force of more than 750,000 members.