FIfty-seven years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. held the nation’s attention when he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
On Friday, his eldest son and granddaughter stood in that same spot and urged the thousands of people gathered to continue the fight for equality, justice and an end to police brutality — some of the same issues the civil rights leader addressed decades ago.
”Less than a year before he was assassinated, my grandfather predicted this very moment,” said 12-year-old Yolanda King, as her father, Martin Luther King III stood by. “He said that we were moving into a new phase of the struggle. The first phase was for civil rights and the new phase is a struggle for genuine equality. Genuine equality is why we are here today and why people are coming together all across the world from New Zealand to New Jersey.”
Both Kings spoke on the anniversary of the March on Washington during the National Action Network-led protest billed as the “Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,” which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covered via livestream.
Other civil rights groups also supported the effort, including with smaller events in Atlanta and their own cities, and the NAACP, on Thursday and Friday, held a virtual March on Washington.
Both came on the heels of the Democratic and Republican national conventions as the nation heads towards the November presidential election.
Martin Luther King III, one of the organizers, told the crowd that they were there to “bear witness, to remain awake, to remember from where we’ve come and to carefully consider where we’re going.”
In 1963, his father shared his dream, King said, but “we must never forget the American nightmare of racist violence exemplified when Emmett Till was murdered on this day in 1955 and the criminal justice system failed to convict his killers.” Sixty-five years later, he said there is still a “struggle for justice,” which includes demilitarizing the police, ending mass incarceration and declaring “that Black Lives Matter.”
The march didn’t draw the same number of people as the 1963 march, because of COVID-19 restrictions, although thousands still came.
The march was a call to action against systemic racism, police brutality and the killings of African Americans by police. Many of the speakers also spoke about the pandemic — which has disproportionately affected Black, Latino and poor people — along with the upcoming presidential election and voter suppression.
Many, including Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, also referenced the work of the late Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights leader, close King Jr. aide and fierce defender of voting rights. They called for Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
For Lewis, it was the 1955 death of Emmett Till, accused of offending a white woman in Mississippi, that sparked a call to action, Harris said Friday. Till, 14, represented to Lewis what Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks and others represent today, she said.
Lewis died last month at the age of 80.
“For Congressman Lewis, the brutal murder of Emmett Till is what shook loose the activist inside him,” Harris said in a video message played during the event. “It was the start of a lifelong journey toward service and driving change, the same journey that countless young leaders are building on as we speak.”
Though she didn’t speak, the widow of Rayshard Brooks was in attendance, according to her attorney. Brooks, 27, was killed by an Atlanta police officer in June.
Speakers included U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas; Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, which was one of the sponsors; and Aalayah Eastmond, who survived the 2018 mass shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, told the crowd that coming together to talk about the problems isn’t enough.
There must be plans in place and actions to spark change, he said. Bryant compared the shooting of Jacob Blake to the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin this week. Blake’s father and the family’s attorney have said he is paralyzed.
”Even when you render us paralyzed, we still know how to crawl,” Bryant said.
Bryant urged the crowd to vote in November, even if they have to crawl.
”Black people rise up and accomplish what you will!” he said.
The families of several other Black people killed or seriously injured by police or in racial violence were also in attendance.
The parents of Ahmaud Arbery, shot and killed in February in a coastal Georgia neighborhood, addressed the crowd Friday afternoon, using the time to thank their supporters.
Three men have been charged with murder in the death of 25-year-old Arbery.
”I’m carrying a very broken heart but also a grateful heart that God chose my son to be a part of this huge movement,” Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, said. “Sadly, we have these types of tragic events far too often. But I want each of you to please don’t forget their names.”
Marcus Arbery Sr. said he still struggles to accept that his son is gone. But he won’t give up the fight for justice.”It’s been a hard road because my boy was lynched by three white men,” he said. “I can’t believe it. But I sit back and say my boy’s gone and he’s not coming back.”
