“As the first ceremony of such magnitude ever initiated and dominated by Negroes, the march also was the first to have its nature wholly misperceived in advance.
Dominant expectations ran from paternal apprehension to dread. On Meet the Press, television reporters grilled Roy Wilkins and Martin Luther King about widespread foreboding that “it would be impossible to bring more than 100,000 militant Negroes into Washington without incidents and possibly rioting.” In a preview article, Life magazine declared that the capital was suffering “its worst case of invasion jitters since the First Battle of Bull Run.” President Kennedy’s advance man, Jerry Bruno, positioned himself to cut the power to the public address system if rally speeches proved incendiary. The Pentagon readied nineteen thousand troops in the suburbs; the city banned all sales of alcoholic beverages; hospitals made room for riot casualties by postponing elective surgery. More than 80 percent of the day’s business revenue would be lost to closed and empty stores. Although D.C. Stadium stood nearly four miles from the Lincoln Memorial rally site, Major League Baseball canceled in advance two night games between the Minnesota Twins and the last-place Senators.” The first two videos posted below come from the Meet the Press episode referred to in the quote. Both Roy Wilkins and Dr. King respond to questioned by white journalists that are based on assumed Black criminality and/or communist affiliation.
After describing the peaceful and exemplary conduct of the marchers, Taylor Branch went on to note that there were only four arrests related to the March: “Police recorded only four march related arrests, all of white people: one Nazi, two violent hecklers, and a health insurance computer (analyst) who drove to work with a loaded shotgun.”
Unfortunately the racist assumption of Black criminality continues today. Black people routinely tell of experiences of being pulled over by police, being followed by security personnel while shopping, and other ways of being racially profiled that assume criminal intent. The third video posted below features Sherrilyn Ifill the former President of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She offers powerful examples of ways in which racist assumptions about Black criminality continue to impact people today. She compares this to the Black Codes passed by many states after the Civil War in order to control the movements and actions of newly freed Black people. Her words are clear and challenging. It is essential to listen with openness rather than with denial or defensiveness. Sixty years after the March on Washington, we still have work to do so that we can continue the march toward freedom and justice for all.