It has been very moving watching to coverage of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington today. I was 6 years old on August 28, 1963 and I’m pretty sure I didn’t have much of a clue of what was going on except that Daddy was away from home. My sister Sandy, in writing this blog the other day talked about her desire at the time to go with Dad to the March. She was all of 13 years old, and while she had a much better understanding of what was happening than I did, she was perhaps still a little too young to fully grasp the significance of all that was happening in those days.
Years later as I was interviewing my dad for my family history project, I ran across an old scrapbook of my grandfather’s (his father) that was full of pictures and newspaper clippings from the March. Included among the photos was a picture of my grandfather seated on one of the buses and several other photos from the March itself. It must have been a remarkable day. I don’t remember my father having more than a few pictures of the march, though I’m sure there are probably some tucked in the remaining pictures from the old steamer trunks where he and my mom kept such treasures.
I am grateful to my father and my grandfather, and to all those members of my family who marched, protested, wrote letters, went to meetings and engaged in all manner of intentional activity to bring about justice and equality for all people. And while my father spent a lot of his time and energy focused on Black people, he also helped to organizes strikes and other actions against a local company in South Bend that was discriminating against and not Mexican Americans. In all of the digging I’ve been able to do in my family history (with the aid of a very knowledgable genealogist) I discovered that my great grandfather had also been active in local politics. It is pretty impressive to think about this because he was descended from a slave mother and a white slaveholding father and was raised at a time when a number of legal restrictions were beginning to be placed on freed African American people. In spite of all that my great grandfather became a successful businessman, as was my grandfather after him.
I come from a long line of social justice warriors. When I think of that I realize that in some ways I was destined to do the work that I do, that no matter how I might tell myself that I “accidentally” ended up working for racial and social justice. One doesn’t do anything for 30 years and call it an accident. I’ve only marched a few times in my life (including one my father helped plan after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968) and I haven’t spoken in front of large groups of people like my father did. My work for “justice” has been quieter, more behind the scenes, and much more understated. But as I look back through my career and at my “life’s work,” I feel like I can stand beside my father, my grandfather and all the men and women down through my family line and know that I too have done my part and struck my own blows for freedom and equity.
I am grateful for my ancestors who paved the way for me so that I in turn could do so for someone else, for many someones. I’m looking forward to one of these days being able to turn the work over to the younger folks and I can go and sit down someplace and rest. Until then, tomorrow will find me up and at it again with renewed determination and a grateful heart.
