Half a century ago

In 1963, on a small TV in grainy black and white pictures, I watched news reels of the historic March on Washington, D.C., longing even then, as a girl not yet 16 years old, to be there. The "n" word was common in my hometown and, much to my shame, in my own home, as I heard it used night after night earlier that year, especially when footage of young children in Birmingham -- just children peacefully walking to school -- were met by police who used high-pressure fire hoses on them without provocation. 

After Rev.King was imprisoned and wrote his eloquent letter from that city's jail, and the whole world was watching what was happening, officials from President Kennedy's administration finally got off their collective butts and tried to "negotiate," but it was too little, too late, and rioting ensued the next day-- but only after members of the KKK bombed Rev. King's home.

During all of those long, hot months, I silently watched and privately cried, feeling a white-hot shame for what our country was doing -- for what it was allowing to be done -- not to enemy combatants but to fellow citizens of our country -- people who were simply refusing to accept the abuse and crimes being committed against them. I couldn't understand how our president could stand by and do nothing. President Kennedy had set the bar high when he was elected, calling for us, the youth of America, to serve our country and change the world, with rhetoric that spoke directly to my ideal, young heart. But now this? THIS? It was too much for me to bear. Others must have felt the same indignation and shame, as calls for civil rights reform grew louder. I can clearly remember wondering why we never talked about any of this in our schools, why we children just a few states away were shielded from knowing about Jim Crow laws, segregation, and all of the misery and degradation that our country, our democracy, was turning a blind eye to. And mostly I remember the silence: the refusal to talk about it, as though not speaking of it would somehow make it all go away.

While the so-called grown-ups were seeing this on television -- the massive march on Washington, right there in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln -- I remember thinking that the Civil War wasn't over, that it might never be over, that all of its horrors might have been in vain, that the Union was preserved but its people were betrayed. I don't remember hearing Dr. King's entire address. It was too much for a lot of white people to hear. Where they expected hatred, there was love; where violence, nonviolence. Where they thought they would find ignorance, they found eloquence. Their dream was not the same as Martin Luther King's dream.

I like to believe that they felt shame, too-- that their fears were just the result of their own ignorance, that they would embrace the change that was now upon them. For the first time in my life, but not the last, I was ashamed to be white. I wish I were convinced that things are different now, that there is nothing but a rainbow coalition, but I know better. How much has really changed, not in our laws but in our hearts and minds? When President Obama was elected, I was there in that spot in front of the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate that at least a slim majority of our people had seen the light. And I pray now that the rest of them will let that light shine into their hearts and souls, too. Yes, we've come a long way, but we've still got a long way to go.

Let's keep marching.