Our day in the sun
There was strength in our number at the Dr. Martin Luther King Junior march downtown today. It was possibly the warmest march you could ask for over the 4 mile hike across the city's span. While some people looked for leaders to call out chants like "no justice, no peace", it was never the leaders that powered the civil rights movement. It was always the people hitting the ground, demanding a more just and equitable society, who powered the movement; only history forced us to identify leaders to record the chain of events.
We let our light shine. The words were not so important, but the binding spirit drew us together in spite of individual differences. Our actions were louder, and the strength of our numbers helped to "keep that dream alive" in such a way as to shut down the main routes of the city. In this city the pedestrian is usually lucky to cross at a stop light, but our movement possesed the asphault.
The police were in full force along the route, meanily there to secure the march from traffic. Also in our presence were the usual leftist activists who I usually find in good compnay but served to devide us for the singular reason that brings us there. So too the community preachers, trying to lead us in prayer to further segregate the community along religous grounds. Not that it mattered much when so many of the participants seemed to be going through a usual routine with their silent stride. I had no idea whether to be exited that a school board canidate marched along with their banner because of her community support, or digusted to taking advantage of the event for her own means.
A lone exception to this division was the presence of the Instead of War coalition, if only because of the impact of a statisticly overepresented african-americans in the military having a larger footprint. You could say in some way the presence of a diversified group of activists and participants could have lowered the march's impact, except that our unity in this celebration only makes it more significant as a cause.