Under the baobab: 60th anniversary of March on Washington marks continuation of efforts

“I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”

Along with 250,000 other people I heard the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. say these words at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Today is the 60th anniversary of that historic event. At the time, it was the largest civil rights demonstration ever held, a major leap forward in the movement for justice and freedom. It began solemnly with an announcement by A. Phillip Randolph that W.E.B. Du Bois, a founder of the American civil rights movement and one of America’s great minds, had passed away in Ghana the night before. Randolph said, “He is the one that drew us all here together.”

On Saturday we joined thousands of people and 50 civil rights organizations at an event held in D.C. led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and his wife, Andrea Waters King. Leaders emphasized that it was a continuation, not a commemoration.

The State College Borough’s Racial, Equity Advisory Commission (REAC) are sponsoring an event to mark the anniversary today from 4-6 p.m. in the Martin Luther King Plaza on Fraser Street. Gary Abdullah is chair of the REAC. Other members are: Carol Eicher, Lisette Garcia, Sandra Gonzalez De Del Pilar, Donald Hahn, Lesley Kistner, Wanda Knight, Carmin Wong and yours truly.

Another leader we listened to in 1963 was Harry Belafonte. Belafonte modeled himself on his mentor, Paul Robeson, another great artist who used his platform to fight for justice and freedom. At the 1963 March, Harry said, “Artists have a valuable function in any society because it is the artists who reveal the society to itself.” Belafonte was already a committed activist. In the spring of 1963, he posted the bail bond for MLK in Birmingham and raised $50,000 to get other protesters out of jail. He was one of the organizers of the Cultural Contingent, a group of singers, actors, writers and other celebrities from Hollywood, New York and around the country. Some celebrities he brought to the March were singers; Mahalia Jackson, Bob Dylan, Marian Anderson, Joan Baez, Odetta and Peter, Paul & Mary; actors and writers; Burt Lancaster, Lena Horne, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Bobby Darin, Dick Gregory, Sydney Poitier, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Gregory Peck, Rita Moreno, Joseph Mankiewicz, Tony Curtis, Diahann Carroll, Lorraine Hansberry, Sammy Davis Jr., Sam Peckinpah, James Baldwin, Charlton Heston and Marlon Brando. He had a petition signed by 1,500 celebrities that demanded an end to segregation and discrimination.

Most people remember him as a great singer and actor. He is one of the few performers to achieve the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards). He introduced American society to West Indian music. His album, “Calypso,” released in 1956, was the first LP recorded by a single artist to sell a million copies. He appeared in several films with his dear friend Sidney Portier. He co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge in “Carmen Jones,” for which she became the first African American woman to receive an Academy Award nomination for best actress.

I first met Mr. Belafonte when he came to Mississippi in 1964 to support the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. Several hundred Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee workers had been arrested in the Delta. He and Sidney Portier posted our bail. They basically bankrolled SNCC.

Many years later in 1998 he asked me to participate in the 100th anniversary celebration of Paul Robeson’s birthday at Carnegie Hall. Many celebrities participated, some of whom had been part of the Cultural Contingent in 1963. In fact the only name on the program no one recognized was mine. Harry Belafonte joined the ancestors last spring. He was 96, he was one of the last surviving speakers from the March. We lost another splendid oak but the seeds of his commitment have bequeathed us a great forest.

Charles Dumas is a lifetime political activist, a professor emeritus from Penn State, and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for U.S. Congress in 2012. He was the 2022 Lion’s Paw Awardee and Living Legend honoree of the National Black Theatre Festival. He lives with his partner and wife of 50 years in State College.