Under the baobab: Community commemorates March on Washington, movement it inspired
“Our voices matter. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to shut us up.”
Sixty-two years ago, on Aug. 28, 1963, 250,000 people, Black and white, gathered in Washington, D.C. to demand jobs, freedom and the right to vote for Black people in the South. At the time it was the largest demonstration of its kind ever held in the nation’s capital.
Our church youth group took the overnight train from Chicago. So did Bernie Sanders, a college student from the University of Chicago.
It was the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The date also commemorated the eighth anniversary of the lynching of Emmitt Till, whose death galvanized the Civil Rights movement. The primary speakers were A. Philip Randolph, John Lewis, Walter Reuther, Floyd McKissick, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who delivered his iconic, ”I Have a Dream” speech.
This week in State College, neighbors crowded together in the Dr. Martin Luther King Plaza to commemorate that March on Washington and the movement it inspired. Community leaders Gary Abdullah and Leslie Laing were the emcees. Talea Drummer-Ferrell, Penn State’s associate vice president for student affairs, gave the keynote address.
In the spirit of the original march, representatives from various organization gave 2-5 minute descriptions of their organization, which included plans for the coming year and special efforts to create unity and synergy in the community: Georjanne Williams Rosa spoke for the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Kai Holden for the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Channing Houston for the PSU Black Caucus, Carol Eicher for the Community Diversity Group, Joe Nastase for PIER Foundation, Kerry Tolton for Centre Foundation, Peter Buck for Sustain Penn State, Angelique Abdul-Quddus for Under Angels Wings and the PSU Chapter of the National Council of Negro Women founded by Mary McCleod Bethune. Wilson Okello and Laing performed spoken word pieces.
State Rep Paul Takac, State College Mayor Ezra Nunes, Judge Don Hahn, CPA director Sita Frederick, State College Poet Laurette Carmin Wong, State College Borough councilman Gopal Balachandran, State College Borough Manager Tom Fountaine and State College Area school board member Jesse Barlow also attended.
Elsewhere around town
Three Dots is a vibrant arts organization that “envisions the Centre Region as a thriving cultural web where creativity powers community interconnectedness, drives transformation, and shapes a bold, inclusive future.” Executive director Erica Quinn, assistant director Elena Quiones and board president Eston Martz welcomed nearly 100 artists, art organizations and educators to a workshop that focused on the future of the arts in Happy Valley. The event provided an opportunity and venue to assess the arts environment, considering our present fluid circumstances.
And congratulations to professor and State College Borough Councilman Gopal Balachandran. He is the attorney for Subu Vedam, who has served more than 42 years of a life sentence for a murder he attests that he did not commit. On Thursday, Centre County President Judge Jonathan Grine vacated Vedam’s first-degree murder conviction and granted him a new trial. Grine found that county prosecutors violated Vedam’s due process rights and deprived him of a fair trial. County prosecutors have the options to retry Vedam or appeal Grine’s decision, or choose not to retry the case, which would result in Vedam’s release from Huntingdon state prison.
Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna said the DA’s office “will consider all its options.” A pre-trial conference is scheduled for November. At a well-attended gathering at Webster’s Bookstore the same day, Balachandran announced the publication of his article, “The Trials of Subu Vedam” in the New England Review. Russell Frank and Savita Iyer, senior editor of the Penn Stater magazine, writers who have been actively following and writing about the case, also spoke.
While neighbors are being snatched off the street it is wonderful to have one potentially being freed.
Charles Dumas is a lifelong political activist, a professor emeritus from Penn State, and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Congress in 2012. He is a Lions Paw honoree. He lives in State College with his wife and partner of over 50 years.