MARCHING ON MONTGOMERY
Plastrik, Stanley
The twenty-five thousand Americans who converged upon Montgomery on March 25 surely did not represent the "best" of America in terms of wealth, status or power, but —in the words of Bayard...
...Not only does he find the tone, rhythm and words of the popular orator...
...Who will ever forget his first view of the Alabama capitol building, flying the state flag and, underneath, a huge flag of the Confederacy...
...we came by the thousands, and stand ready to come again...
...Coming from New York in a hastily arranged flight, one first became aware of the approaching tension upon reaching the comparatively moderate city of Atlanta...
...more important, there were the people who, like oneself, were Montgomery bound...
...It dealt a smashing blow to the worst illusion of the hard-core South: that it can live along on myths of the past, that it can escape the harsh scrutiny of the rest of America...
...Few whites lined the main street...
...As the marchers gathered closer together to form one solid, disciplined, and orderly meeting, the only onlookers were knots of soldiers, and state employees staring out of the buildings...
...It was the most powerful, confident, and dramatic civil rights confrontation ever held in America...
...behind an equal number of people stretching to the very outskirts of the town...
...That this confrontation took place in the heart of the unreconstructed South only underscored its drama...
...Only the marchers carried the American flag...
...he also understands the need to raise the level of his audience...
...Governor Wallace handled himself in a confused manner throughout the day, now agreeing to see a delegation, then rejecting a meeting...
...This was the road on which Jefferson Davis, one hundred years ago, walked to be sworn in as president of the Confederacy...
...Gangs of young white toughs were already out on the streets looking for "strays...
...There is no need to repeat here the speeches of the meeting...
...As we swung onto the broad street that leads downtown through the center of Montgomery and then upward to the capitol building itself, the first heckling from white bystanders began...
...The March was already underway...
...but this was risky business...
...Jude, the previous night's camping site, from which the March would be completed...
...236 STANLEY PLASTRIK...
...The restaurant waiter was openly aggressive, the groups of older whites in the lobby were abusing the newspaper and TV men staying in the hotel...
...Many of these protectors had sewn small confederate flags onto their uniforms...
...others, like myself, were veterans of past movements and peripheral participants in this one...
...Jude...
...THE MAIN STREET dips down toward the center of Montgomery at a slight slope, flattens out, then rises toward the state capitol on a similar slope where, around a bend, stands the capitol building itself...
...Before long we were entering the southern outskirts of the city, walking through an allNegro section of the city...
...still others (most of the nuns and clerics) were experiencing the excitement of their first "witnessing" and mass action...
...The highway leading into the city was packed with an orderly, impressive, moving crowd...
...In a few moments we were rolling along the now famous Route 80 toward the complex of red brick buildings making up St...
...The most impressive view of the afternoon was at the bottom of this dip—ahead were ten or more thousand people, marching six abreast and singing freedom songs...
...We marched, white and black, Northerners and Southerners, into the very bastion of racism...
...LATER, as evening came, I found myself at an integrated hotel in downtown Montgomery...
...My decision to leave abruptly was reinforced upon reading a bronze placard at the hotel's entrance announcing that upon this sacred spot Jeff Davis had been first proclaimed as head of the Confederacy...
...But by now the March was so massive, its tone and spirit so high, that this heckling meant nothing...
...Stationed along the line of march were hundreds of the federalized Alabama state guard, a hostile, sloppy group of soldiers, many smoking, drinking coke, and shuffling around...
...There, waiting for the Montgomery plane connection, one encountered the first curious and hostile stares...
...most were behind the windows of the somewhat seedy office buildings and stores that lined the street...
...Finally the emotional peak of the long afternoon came after King's peroration when 25,000 people swayed back and forth singing "We Shall Overcome...
...Martin Luther King, in my view, is easily the most powerful and impressive public speaker in America today...
...The South will never again be the same...
...Some were veterans of the movement (SNCC, Catholic Interracial Youth Council, etc...
...If the March on Washington may be likened to a declaration of purpose on the part of the American Negro, the March on Montgomery was his declaration that henceforth he will walk without fear...
...The point is that the power of this demonstration came as a surprise to him and his fellows in the state legislature...
...Do not underestimate the significance of the Montgomery March...
...The passengers on the Montgomery-bound plane broke up into two groups—the "invaders" (how many times were we to hear that word) and the white Southerners, hostile, confused, angry...
...His speech contained a concise and clear summary of the best American historical thought on the cause and role of supremacist doctrine in social and economic terms...
...The noisiest 235 expression of hatred came from the office buildings in which insurance companies, auto sales stores, etc., were located—white-collar sales people, insurance salesmen, clerks...
...It was the most natural thing to approach them, introduce oneself, and exchange notes...
...No one who went through that exhilarating day will ever forget it...
...At the airport chartered buses were ready and rolling, to carry the new arrivals to the City of St...
...to find oneself linked on either side with two pretty, young Negro high school girls, who shyly looked out of the corners of their eyes, was worth the long hours of standing in the sun...
...It was met with smiles of contempt...
...The twenty-five thousand Americans who converged upon Montgomery on March 25 surely did not represent the "best" of America in terms of wealth, status or power, but —in the words of Bayard Rustin—"all the best in America" was there...
Vol. 21 • April 1974 • No. 2
