March on Washington

August 28, 1963

A story and photographs by Photo Finish

I was on my summer break from Cornell (going into my senior year). At our community Barn (literally the barn that was the center of the farm that morphed into our left-leaning group in Goldens Bridge) a bunch of kids were congregating as usual and someone said, “There is going to be a march of Washington. We are going to get a bus to go down. Do you want to come?” Anything to help heal the wounds of racism. Sure, I’m in. So a group of us went down. Interesting that none of my friends are in any of the photos and, in truth, I can’t recall who the others were. It was, as seen in the photos, quite an event. While I’m sure I heard the “I have a dream” speech, I was some distance from the Lincoln Memorial (as noted in a couple of the photos) and I don’t recall “hearing” the speech at the time. I wish the March made a tangible difference in our country’s approach to Blacks, Asians, Moslems, Indians … but, alas, recent events have laid bare that the wounds from this nation’s founding (slavery) still have not healed. May we work collectively to transform MLK’s words into deeds.


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