The Jefferson Rule by David Sehat

Author:David Sehat
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CHAPTER SIX

The Montage Effect

In the sweltering August of 1963, Washington, D.C., braced for an epic riot. Plans were for hundreds of thousands of black protesters to descend on the capital. To make sure that order was kept, no one was taking any chances. The authorities brought in two thousand police officers, two thousand National Guardsmen, and two hundred park police to patrol the single mile of National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. An extra four thousand troops from the army and Marines were waiting in the wings, on call. The organizers themselves deployed two thousand marshals to direct the march and to discipline anyone who got out of hand.1

On the day of the event, swarms of immaculately dressed protesters began to gather at the Washington Monument. By 9 a.m., the police estimated the crowd, mostly black but with a surprisingly large number of white sympathizers, at 90,000. Still the people kept coming. Two hours later, the full complement of more than 200,000 was gathered. While the leaders were at the Capitol meeting with lawmakers, the crowd decided, on its own and ahead of schedule, to begin walking toward the Lincoln Memorial. The march between the memorials was quiet and without incident, eerily powerful in its slow-moving mass. For many observers it suggested an inevitability that could not be held back. The New York Times spoke of “the human tide that swept over the Mall.” “Like every revolution, the Negro revolution is formless,” Time observed. It sprang not from a single source that could be stopped but was, instead, “an oceanic tide of many waters.”2

That surge of people had occurred because of recent events. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was the conclusion of a summer of revolt. Rejecting the centuries of oppression, the decades of segregation, and the constant recommendation of patience from would-be white sympathizers, black leaders left the bloody conflicts earlier that summer in Birmingham, Alabama, convinced that the time for civil rights was “Now!” Organizers sought to seize on white sympathy that had emerged when Birmingham police let loose dogs and water cannons on peaceful protesters, many of whom were teenagers. That perhaps fleeting rupture in the public’s usual indifference could be put to use.3

Simply by amassing that many people, the organizers had accomplished part of their task. “The presence of nearly a quarter of a million petitioners anywhere always makes a Senator think,” the columnist James Reston observed. “He seldom ignores that many potential votes, and it did not escape the notice of Congressmen that these Negro organizations, some of which had almost as much trouble getting out a crowd as the Washington Senators several years ago, were now capable of organizing the largest demonstrating throng ever gathered in one spot in the District of Columbia.”4

But just as important, the march combined other things that a politician would find hard to ignore. It drew on the church, which added religious sanction to the cause. It had the benefit of black singers and other celebrities, which drew further media attention.

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