 | PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSHUA RASHAAD MCFADDEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
| | By Debra Adams Simmons, HISTORY Executive Editor
Some roared in 2,670 miles by motorcycle from Los Angeles. Others walked for 750 miles from Milwaukee. By the tens of thousands Black Americans from across the United States made the journey to Washington, D.C.’s National Mall on Friday to pay tribute to the past and, they hoped, lay the groundwork for a more equitable and just future.
They came to honor the sacrifices of their ancestors and to demand justice in the name of their children. (Pictured above, Alena Battle of Charlotte, North Carolina, holding her son, Tamaj Bulloch.)
“The world doesn’t love them like I love them,” Crystal Lockhart of Chicago said of her sons, ages 15 and three. “The world doesn’t see them like I see them. I have to fight for their lives.”
A diverse melting pot commemorated the 57th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Saying there’s no vaccine for racism and the current moment is greater than fear, they came in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic which has taken more than 180,000 American lives. And they stayed in spite of the sweltering heat that brought many of the face masks required for entry down to people’s chins as the day wore on.
Today, many are still trying to put this historical moment in context. Nearly 60 years after the first March on Washington, the country is living through a long, hot summer bookended by the May 25 death of George Floyd as a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes and the August 23 shooting of Jacob Blake seven times in his back as his children looked on. These incidents are among the latest in a long history — and continuous cycle — of sanctioned police violence against African Americans. It’s not coincidental that the march came on the 65th anniversary of the lynching of Emmett Till whose murder galvanized the Civil Rights Movement. In 2020, many are asking how they could be in the same fight for racial equality that their ancestors had endured.
The program’s list of speakers at the Lincoln Memorial seemed a roll call of mourners, Rachel Jones writes for National Geographic, as family after family of those killed by police took to the stage.
The collective mourning continued through the weekend as word spread of the passing of iconic Black figures, symbols of hope and progress, including Black Panther movie star Chadwick Boseman, who redefined who could be a superhero. Just 43 years old, Boseman succumbed to colon cancer on Friday. On Sunday, John Thompson Jr., the legendary Georgetown University men’s basketball coach who was the first Black coach to win a NCAA championship and is credited with saving the lives and molding a generation of young Black men, passed away. These deaths were a gut punch to a weary community.
Despite the stones in the road, the marchers march on.
“We are our ancestors' wildest dreams, women of color traveling across the land of the free,” said Porsche Taylor, founder of the Black Girls Ride motorcycle club magazine who organized the cycle trip to Washington. “We ride to ensure the future of our future leaders. We’ve come a long way but our journey is not over.”
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