Where Was I?

I’m glad the 50th anniversary celebration of the March on Washington is winding down. Frankly, it was making me ashamed. 

Ashamed of myself. 

I should have a personal memory of that time. Of that event. And I don’t. 

In August 1963 I was about to enter my senior year in high school. I was old enough to be civically engaged. I  would weather the death of President Kennedy 3 months later. I have vivid memories of that.  Why don’t I remember the March? It just didn’t make it on to my radar. 

Four years later in 1967, as an exchange student to traditionally black Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia, I witnessed a spontaneous re-enactment of the “I Have a Dream Speech” by Clark College students on the steps of the dining hall. But in 1963, I, like so many others I’d guess, didn’t notice it.