MLK Monument Dedication

Oct. 15-16, Washington, DC
 

Report from the front:
Yesterday I spoke briefly to First Lady, Michelle and President Barack Obama. This is a report from the front, the front of the Civil Rights/Political establishment.  I celebrated the entire morning with a small knot of Americans including, in addition to the President and First Lady, and their two children (the dog was missing), John Lewis, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Joe Biden, Attorney General Holder, General Powell, Tim Geithner, Ken Salazar, on down to Madame Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, Ledisi, Tommy Hilfinger, Rev. Sharpton, Nikki Giovanni, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Mary Mary (both of them) and others too numerous to drop.  I saved two seats up front for Eric Falkenstein and Senator Wofford, but was asked to give up mine for Dan Rather.  Since he is older than me, I agreed.

Strangely, our High Class section was first come first served and I joked with other before-dawn guests that I didn’t usually get up this early for Sunday services.  When Eric and Senator Wofford opted to sit with the masses, I gave their carefully guarded seats to Kerry Kennedy and a friend from Texas.  Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democratic Whip and movement jailbird, sitting with us, joined Dorothy Cotton, Kerry, me and James Taylor in every lusty chorus, especially Lift Every Voice and Sing.  Jumping up and down, we waved and shouted at every well-turned line delivered by good speakers.

Of interest to SNCC, and other once youthful movement veterans, are Joe Lowery, C. T. Vivian, Marian Wright Edelman, Doris Derby and husband, actor Bob Banks, Pam and Julian Bond, along with son, Michael.  There was also Frank Smith, Frank Holloway of Atlanta, Marion Barry, Chuck Neblett, Dorothy Cotton, Bernard Lafayette and Kate, big and little Jesse Jackson. 

  
The point of this name dropping orgy is that listing every person in the so called VIP section wouldn’t approach 1% of even the still living movement leadership cadre. Apparently there was no reaching out to great leaders still with us like Gloria Richardson Dandridge, the Ladner ladies, Joyce and Dorie, Dianne Nash, Dottie Miller, Connie Curry, and Jim Lawson - where was he? 

The guts of this dedication, however, the 99.9%, stood in front of the Big Stage.  They viewed celebs from our section, trundled back and forth, some in wheel chairs, for fleeting appearances before the masses.  Not one bold print name up there, we all know, would have, could have, become what or who they are, absent those folks standing just below.

Consulting a voluminous compendium of notes, I’m astonished that so few references to Occupy Wall Street were heard.  Ambassador Young’s panel, following the dedication and immediately before going to the White House for a movement veteran’s reception, is instructive.  The trio of altacockers, Ambassador Andy Young, Senator Harris Wofford and Congressman John Dingle of Detroit, mentioned only in passing the Occupy America Movement now going worldwide.  WE ARE THE WORLD – OCCUPY IT!

I shouted for them to discuss the Occupy America Movement but they missed the point.  The old men just didn’t get it until every question during Q and A turned on the inspiring new movement upsurge.  Had there been a woman or a young person on the panel things might have been different. 
 
Bob Zellner
October 17, 2011