Clifford Bell could not catch every word. He was in a thick crowd around the reflecting pool in Washington, D.C., doing his best to hear the amplified voice of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as it rolled across an audience almost as large as today’s entire population of Buffalo.
Yet something in that 1963 delivery to more than 250,000 people – in conscience, force and sheer love – went straight to Bell’s core. In later days and months, by film or article, he would come to appreciate every sentence in King’s March on Washington speech, eternally known by four words:
“This was a congregation,” said Bell – “Brother Bell” to generations in Buffalo, a community extension of his presence in the church – wrapping together a kind of grace that united the crowd, Black and white.
The violent history of legal or de facto racism, of Jim Crow segregation, “could get people discouraged because it seemed your efforts weren’t getting you anywhere,” Bell said.
At that moment, for so many weary or scarred from the long struggle, denominations did not matter: With that speech, Bell said, King “reinforced our faith.”
That was 60 years ago Monday. Bell was 33, and in the dry cleaning business. He and John Mayo, a close friend then and now, climbed on one of the buses lined up by the Buffalo branch of the NAACP.
The two men recall traveling all night, eating packed lunches, in order to be there on time.
“Just amazing,” Bell said, “to see so many people, in so many directions.”
…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply