Cross-Posted from Free Speech Radio News
(audio for this piece was provided by Grassroots DC Contributor Noelle Galos)
Events marking the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington are taking place across the country. Illinois State University students are organizing a series of performances to pay tribute to Bayard Rustin, an organizer of the 1963 march. In Detroit, where Martin Luther King, Jr. originally delivered a version of his “I Have a Dream” speech, thousands gathered for a march earlier this summer. Now, that energy is coming to Washington, DC, site of the historic march and rally. Several days of events kick off this weekend. Marchers will gather Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial to protest against a number of civil rights issues that persist: the attack on voter rights, racial profiling, poverty and discrimination. Local activists are organizing to have a share in the weekend’s events, and they hope to address racial profiling within DC law enforcement, which they say is part of the “New Jim Crow.” They are planning two feeder marches from opposite ends of the city, and hope to bring national attention to racial inequalities in the Nation’s Capital. Laura Lising, one of the group’s organizers, explained to FSRN why the group was formed and how they are plugging in their campaign to the March:
LISING: Well I think there has been a new life breathed into the march by the anger around Trayvon Martin’s murder and the acquittal of Zimmerman, despite the clear fact that he was the murderer. And so people are going to be going down there, not to just celebrate this event that happened 50 years ago, but to demand an end to continuing racist practices. And so we see ourselves in that spirit. Most of us, all of us who are involved in organizing were out for Trayvon, night after night after the Zimmerman acquittal happened… But we want to address local issues as well, and we bring the issue of racial profiling in DC to the national stage, and this is an amazing opportunity to do so.
The group of activists are united behind putting an “end to racial profiling.” They have been holding public meetings in neighborhoods across DC to share the findings of two studies published in July, one by the Washington Lawyers Committee and another by the American Civil Liberties Union. Both reports show a pattern of racial profiling by DC law enforcement. The reports look at overall arrest rates, and the ACLU’s study focuses on racial disparities for non-violent offenses, particularly marijuana arrests. The study revealed that African Americans in Washington, DC are eight times more likely to be arrested for a marijuana offense, despite near equal usage among black and white communities. Stuart Anderson, founder of the non-profit organization Family and Friends of Incarcerated People (FFOIP) said he began organizing when he himself was imprisoned.
ANDERSON: I started working with fathers in 1993, inside Lorton. When they closed Lorton, the onus of incarceration, the cost of incarceration was shifted from the city, from the state, or from the federal onto the backs of families.
Anderson said that creates a vicious cycle that weakens families and communities. His organization provides support and training to the children of those behind bars; children that Anderson says are at a higher risk of being incarcerated themselves.
ANDERSON: There are over 1.7 million children of people who are incarcerated in the United States right now today. And of those children, approximately half of them are under the age of 10.
Anderson’s group and other local organizations, are planning a rally for this evening, and will join the larger national contingent on Saturday to highlight ongoing problems with racial profiling. Other local leaders expressed skepticism that their voices would be included in the national program of events. Damian Smith, a DC artist and activist, echoed recent remarks by Cornel West that someone as outspoken as Dr. King would not be invited to speak at the march today.
SMITH: Martin Luther King would talk about extra-judicial assassinations. You know why I know Martin Luther King would talk about drones and extra-judicial assassinations? Because in his time when the war of his time was taking place he spoke at great risk to his own personal reputation about that war.
Like the organizers behind the original March in 1963, the coalition of local groups demands concrete policy change, including oversight of DC’s police department practices that criminalize African American youth. They plan to hold an open mic and neighborhood forum commemorating the original march date on August 28, the same day President Obama is scheduled to give a speech on race and economic injustice from the Lincoln Memorial.
