Washington residents attend 50th anniversary of D.C. rally
Washington-area residents participated in the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington Saturday. Standing, from left, are Carla Ivery, LaVette Archie, Linda Clemons, Leslie Mims and Kimberly Robinson; kneeling is John Campbell.
Washington-area residents participated in the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington Saturday. From left are Emanuel Archie, Phyllis Waller, Jordan Drew, Lynnelle Goins, Bill Lane and Donna Vaughn.
Fifty years ago, Washington resident Louis Waller was among the thousands of people who made the journey to the Lincoln Memorial to take a stand for civil rights and equality.
On Saturday, Waller’s daughter and great-grandson followed in his footsteps.
Phyllis Waller and Jordan Drew were part of a contingent of Washington residents who traveled to the other, bigger city named Washington for the 50th anniversary commemoration of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The event, which happened on Aug. 28, 1963, is considered a milestone in the civil rights movement and in American oratory, thanks to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
“It was great,” Waller said Saturday evening during a stop for dinner in Maryland. She and Drew were on a bus with about 50 other people that departed from Washington at 2 a.m. Martin Luther King Jr.’s son, Martin Luther King III, spoke at the rally, as did Attorney General Eric Holder, and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, the only surviving speaker from the original 1963 march.
Louis Waller, who died in 2009, was president of the Washington branch of the NAACP and served on the state’s executive committee, and his daughter sees involvement in civil rights as a kind of family tradition.
“That’s why I brought my grandson,” she said.
Robert Griffith, current president of Washington’s NAACP, also set out for Washington, D.C., well before dawn with his sister, son and niece in tow.
“It was great to see so many people and to set our sights on the future and the way ahead,” he said.