Martin Luther King gave his famous speech 60 years ago. Since then, “I have a dream” has stood for the peaceful fight against racial discrimination in the USA. Contemporary witnesses remember August 28, 1963 in Washington.
Rosetta Canada-Hargrove was 20 at the time. She took the bus from New York to Washington with her sister. Today she says: “We haven’t even taken any photos, we had no idea that this would go down in the history books, but it is.”
Canada-Hargrove is African American, but she says skin color didn’t matter that day in Washington. “We haven’t even seen if someone is black or white,” said the 80-year-old. It was all about fighting together for more justice, for better jobs, against racism. Her mother didn’t want her and her sister to drive for fear of possible riots. But everything remained peaceful.
For Chris Mitchell, who was a Harvard student at the time and later became a professor of politics, there was no question of going to Washington. “We knew it was really important that there were a lot of people,” Mitchell said. And there were more than 250,000 people at the “March on Washington” 60 years ago.
Michael Reich was in Washington for a physics internship. He walked from his apartment towards the Lincoln Memorial. The 77-year-old still remembers clearly that people were everywhere and that one could hardly move.
“I have a dream,” Martin Luther King called out to more than 250,000 people in Washington on August 28, 1963.
“It was extremely moving”
Martin Smolin is now 89. He came with his wife from New York to the Washington March. After all these years and at his age, he doesn’t know everything exactly anymore, he says, but one scene has been burned into his memory forever: An elderly black lady stretched her hands towards the sky when she saw all the buses – as if a miracle had just happened. “And it was a miracle, it was extremely moving,” Smolin said.
Many speeches were made that August 28, 1963, with King’s turn at the end of the event. During his speech, he deviated from his manuscript and began speaking of his vision for a better world, “I have a dream.” You couldn’t hear any more babies, no coughing, nothing … it was dead quiet, remembers Canada-Hargrove.
A sense of togetherness
“I have a dream that one day my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character,” was one of King’s visions.
When the speech ended, people cried, hugged and clapped and clapped, Canada-Hargrove describes the moment 60 years ago. A feeling of happiness seized her at the time, a feeling of togetherness. Former physics student Reich says August 28, 1963 changed his life.
progress has been made
The experience of the march showed him how important it is to stand up for justice. And what he has learned is that social and economic justice are inseparable. Instead of continuing to study physics, he switched to economics. Reich later wrote his dissertation on economic racism.
Michael, Rosetta, Martin, Chris – they all emphasize that today is of course not comparable to the time of racial segregation in the USA. But they also agree: progress has been made, but not everything has been achieved.