My parents grew up out West, courted at Wellesley and Boston University after WWII, and lived in Palo Alto, CA, the first year they were married. So they simply had no personal experience to go on and weren’t expecting…
They were newly arrived in Washington, DC and some friends invited them to join them at the beach. Now, the Atlantic Ocean is a goodly drive away from there, not someplace you just happen to drop by on a whim.
They got lost.
Mom tells the story that they pulled into where they thought they were supposed to be; they were wondering at first why every single person there was darker than they, when the next thing that happened was all those faces turning towards them: an unspoken, We’re not allowed on YOUR beach. Do you think you’re welcome, then, on ours?
And that was their first experience with good old Southern segregation: wishing they could explain, No, no, we’re with you!
Her father’s proudest vote, looking back later on his Senate career and having crossed party lines to do so, was for the Civil Rights Voting Act of 1965.
Mom had a car full of young children and was driving in Glen Echo, Maryland the day after the King assassination, when a large protest suddenly became a riot, there was a rock incoming, and her windshield cracked. I remember my parents in the evenings with the TV news on, being distraught, not at the windshield so much but at the loss of that good man.
Joan Baez was speaking locally today about her memories of marching with Martin Luther King, Jr.
I wanted to go. Glenn and Johnna offered a ride with them, one less car circling for a spot, and what I wouldn’t have given to be able to hear Ms. Baez’s stories firsthand. That was a part of my story, too, a part of every one of ours. King belongs to all of us, and she knew him.
Truth be told, although it would never happen in the crush of the crowd, her celebrity, and everything else going on, one very small, far-too-self-important corner of me felt it would be so cool to be able to thank her in person for having granted me permission to mention her name, her singing, and her heartfelt hopes that she’d expressed at City Hall Plaza just after 9/11, the story that had launched my entire book project: I knew I had to get that message out into the world. I couldn’t let that moment die away unwritten. It was what propelled the whole rest of that project into being. I owe her much, on top of what we all so much owe King.
Even though my thanks could certainly only have been spoken today by my anonymous face being present in the crowd. I mean, c’mon, get real.
Some days, however, you know that if you push a damaged body past its point on a bad day, you will pay far too steep a price. I’m avoiding surgeons this year if I can help it. I did not go.
Hey, I wonder if YouTube…! (A quick Google result…)
(Edited to add a link to these pictures of Joan to clarify any confusion, and I hadn’t realized the Merc had changed the photo in their article to that of a local judge.)