THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, August 28, 2013 g
Page A-5
County remembers the March on Washington 50 years later n
Marchers say similar problems and solutions prevail today BY
PEGGY MCEWAN STAFF WRITER
Ruby Reese Moone left her Charles County home early on Aug. 28, 1963, about the same time James Macdonell headed out from Bethesda. Both were on their way to the National Mall in Washington, where they would join an estimated 250,000 others from across the country for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was a seminal event in the civil rights movement, one intended to bring the needs of the black community before the country and where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. “We were so excited,” Moone said of herself and her late husband, James Clark Moone. “We were looking forward to a better life.” Moone, who now lives in Rockville, is considered a “foot soldier” in the movement, for her work in Atlanta helping organize buses for the march. She and her husband moved to Maryland from Georgia that August. “We were teachers and back in those days [in Georgia] they didn’t give black employees a contract, so we had to be careful about civil rights work,” Moone said. “My husband and I thought, Why shouldn’t we live in freedom?, so we decided to move.” Macdonell went to college in Chicago and heard King speak there on the theological doctrine of man. “He nearly knocked our socks off. No one know who he was, but as soon as he started to speak he was mesmerizing,” Macdonell said. “I knew we would hear from him again.” Macdonell was pastor of St. Mark Presbyterian Church in Bethesda for 38 years, retiring in 1997. After the March on Washington, where he stood just five rows from King at the Lincoln Memorial, he, too, became a “foot soldier” for civil rights, he said. He marched with King from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, responding to King’s call for pastors from all over the country to come and support the effort for equal voting rights there. “He was my mentor,” Macdonell said. “He motivated us to [act].”
1907544
About 250,000 people flooded the National Mall during the march 50 years ago.
PHOTOS FROM NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Crowds gather on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963. Civil rights leaders decided 1963 was the time for a major national event, said Alonzo Smith, a history professor at Montgomery College in Rockville. They chose Washington to be symbolic of the nationwide need. “The Emancipation Proclamation had been signed 100 years earlier, [President John F.] Kennedy had given a State of the Union speech in January 1963 where he basically said black and white relations were America’s No. 1 domestic problem,” Smith said. “He announced that he would introduce Civil Rights Act legislation.” Current civil rights leaders organized two marches on the National Mall to mark the 50-year anniversary of the 1963 march. One was held Saturday; the other is scheduled for Wednesday: Aug. 28, the same date as the original march. Moone was at Saturday’s march and intends to go again Wednesday. She said she feels there is still much
work to be done in the area of equal rights. “Fifty years ago, the original march was for jobs, justice and peace,” she said. “How many black people are unemployed today compared to white? Look at how many black men and women are in prison. Have conditions changed in 50 years? Look at education. Blacks have lower test scores and more dropouts.” Macdonell, 80, agrees there is more work to do, although he said he is no longer marching because of his age. “I think the divisions in our society are greater than the time of civil rights,” he said. “ I think King would say, ‘Get back to work, we have a lot to do.’ We’ve gone too far to go back but a lot of effects are being reversed: ID cards, some states are requiring people who vote to have ID cards. These are subtle things to keep people from voting. One of the great benefits of democratic society is
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech. the right to vote.” Smith said he was in the Peace Corps in Africa in 1963 but attended Saturday’s gathering. “It was about the same thing [as the 1963 march]: jobs, the economy, peace, freedom, civil equality,” he said. “But this time the concept of civil rights had expanded to include immigrant rights, same-sex marriage, voting rights for
D.C. and criticism of the government for policies that do not forward the concept of freedom.” King, Smith said, believed civil rights issues touched on the whole community, and that people need to respect each other to build a democratic society. “That was the theme then and that is the theme now,” he said.