I went from first grade through 12th grade and learned
practically nothing about black history.
I mean, nothing.
I always liked history.
And so I knew the March on Washington was going to be
a historical event, so I went.
It's all been a progression.
[chanting]
A movement that just keeps going.
[chanting]
We are requesting all citizens to move into Washington,
to go by plane, bus, anyway that you can get there.
We are pushing for jobs, housing,
desegregated schools.
Bayard Rustin and I got up early in the morning
and we went out to the mall.
There was not a soul on the mall, no one.
And Bayard turns to me and said,
"Courtland, do you think anyone is coming to this march?"
And soon as he said that, I mean, people were just
pouring out of bus stations, of train stations.
Into the area that I was assigned to, came Malcolm X.
I'll never forget what he said
because he was not supposed to be there.
What he said was, "I could not not come."
That this was a historic occasion.
There is something about that moment,
when he was talking about why he was there,
that made the march even more significant.
[cheering]
I knew, by name, almost all the people who were speaking.
One was Martin Luther King,
and then I do remember John Lewis.
He is two years older than me.
I was 21, he was 23.
And I said, he is up there as the leader of SNCC.
And what have I done?
People need to understand that the big issue
that Black people had to face at that point is
"What do you Negroes want?"
Martin King in his speech said,
what people want here is the full participation in the American dream.
All the things that you hold sacred, we hold sacred.
[cheering]
That was a powerful speech.
It's almost criminal the way they have reduced that man
to I Have A Dream.
When he talks about [how] the founding fathers of this
country gave our ancestors a promissory note,
and we've come here today to cash that check.
Now to me, that should be the quote
that is memorized from that speech.
You don't hardly hear nothing,
any program and events around the day of
Dr. King's assassination.
All you hear is I Have A Dream. I Have A Dream.
And I think that it's almost criminal because
that man was way more than that.
The image that we have today of the March on Washington,
is that the movement peaked and succeeded
with the March on Washington.
That was definitely not the case,
especially the "succeeded" part.
I frankly think it's an ideological effort
to convince people that this is over, it's finished.
And that's the myth that Black Lives Matter exploded.
[chanting]
The breadth and depth of that movement, worldwide,
is astounding.
You know, and I'm certainly hoping that
something comes out of that.
But the one thing that has come out of that,
was the recognition by the wider community
that there is something wrong.
For my generation, the thing that got most of us
alert and aware and made us begin to really
understand what we were dealing with in this country,
was the lynchng of Emmett Till.
Well, I think George Floyd's lynching,
hopefully, will do the same thing
for the current generation.
I don't know.
I cried for a couple of days just seeing that.
As a Black woman, as a Black person,
that's not new to me.
The deaths aren't new to me.
You think you're going to do something today
and see the results next week or next month.
You've got to understand, you're in a long range thing
and your job– look upon it as a big chain.
And every generation must do its share to weaken
the links in that chain, because the chain
is definitely going to break.
But it may be your great grandchildren who see it break.
Interviewer: I'd love to also talk a little bit about
your personal or working relationship with John Lewis,
how his life and his passing have affected you.
It was an act of bravery, knowing that you're dying,
and he felt the need to go to
the place on 16th Street, Black Lives Matter [Plaza],
to energize himself, but to also make a statement
to these young people.
He didn't talk about being a member of Congress.
He didn't talk about the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
He talked about the importance of
being engaged in struggle in a nonviolent way.
All of the positive changes that have come
have come from people who believed it,
kept doing it,
kept doing it until there was change.
Do not get discouraged.
Believe that you have the power to change things.