Commitment March: The Past is Prologue

“Passing by the City” by Jocelyn Ulevicus (originally published in Quince Magazine)

My introduction to The Great March on Washington was in 1983, during my first year in middle school. It was black history month, February, the shortest and perhaps coldest month of the year, and that winter was particularly frigid. Back then, during the month of February, the New York City public school corporation gave us - mostly poor, urban, black and brown kids, who, at the time, knew more about King Arthur and Louis VIII than we did about our origins in Africa - a crash course in black history. In fact, if February didn’t exist, we might’ve remained in the dark about the contributions black men and women had made throughout history. Fortunately for us, February does exist, and so we learned: Harriet Tubman freed the slaves through the Underground Railroad; George Washington Carver created peanut butter; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream.

Every February we watched footage of The Great March in the school’s auditorium; a black and white movie with poor sound and crackling and static noise. I remember the signs the men carried: “I Am A Man” and “Freedom Now” and “Jobs Now” plastered on billboards and painted on shirts. Although I was conscious of police brutality, and white aggression and white vigilantism, at the time, I knew very little about black history, but that scarcity of knowledge didn’t dissuade me from watching. I watched it much like I watched my Saturday morning cartoons - I was invested. It was unlike other civil rights films of its era, like the one where ferocious German Shepherds shredded people’s clothes and chopped into their flesh; those dogs scared me, as they appeared programmed to attack only black people. Another civil rights-era film showed peaceful protesters thrown violently by water cannons and fire hoses. That one I found the most appalling, not just because of the inhumanity of weaponizing water against people, but the fact that water propelled at such velocity and force resulted in enucleation. The Great March on Washington didn’t chronicle the weapons of the civil rights era: vicious dogs, water cannons and fire hoses, Billy clubs, and rage-filled, all-white mobs armed with biblical scripture, subjectively interpreted and used to justify their racist ideology and behavior. The Great March wasn’t traumatic to watch, on the contrary, it was invigorating, thoughtful, inspiring, and since the time of my initial viewing, I romanticized everything about it.

I envisioned being in a demonstration comparable to The Great March, walking side by side with freedom fighters, “Freedom Now” and “Jobs Now” signs replaced by chants of “No Justice. No Peace!”, and wearing red, black, and green insignia, -strategically patterned and fashioned- coded symbols of a true American revolution. I fantasized about marching to the Lincoln Memorial or walking in the streets of New York, Richmond, Baltimore, or Chicago, joining other Americans in their denouncement of bigotry, calling on our government to end racism and classism once and for all, and having the courage to die for change as our fathers did in the American Revolution and our sons and daughters in Operation Enduring Freedom.

I wanted to protest and be heard because I, like so many of us, experienced the stigma of being black. Let’s be honest, black skin in a white-dominant, Western society is frowned upon; it’s a social disease, and unlike HIV/AIDS a black individual is seen – he cannot conceal himself.

I imagined marching to the beat of the revolutionist’s drum,

What do you want? Justice!

When do you want it? Now!

and prayed that the stentorian vibration of the percussion would decimate white supremacy’s obstinate barrier.

In 1986, five days before Christmas, a black man was beaten and chased to his death by a white mob in Queens, NY. His name was Michael Griffith. He committed no crime against the residents of Howard Beach or their property, but a group of white men unilaterally decided that Michael had no place (or right) on God’s green earth, much less in their all-white neighborhood, and proceeded to act with impunity and without conscience. I was 15 years old at the time of Michael’s murder and a freshman in a Brooklyn high school located a few miles from Howard Beach. Tension between students and white teachers was high that week, and whispers of a walk-out as a means of protesting Michael’s death quickly morphed into a march towards Howard Beach. We were fifty deep, and though unorganized, united by cultural values and apoplectic emotion. Harmoniously, we marched; rhythmically, we chanted:

How-ward Beach! How-ward Beach! How-ward Beach!

With every chant we became louder and more determined, angrier and more defiant, bolder and more courageous. There were no politicians or distinguished rhetoricians to galvanize us, and we didn’t have any signs to broadcast the message or purpose of the march. We had rage and naïveté - angry enough to say, “Fuck school, we’re walking out!”, and innocent enough to believe that one walk-out or one march would change the world.

We marched and chanted for ten long city blocks before I realized that our group of fifty dwindled to twenty, and twenty became ten, and then there were none. We never made it to Howard Beach. We were about a mile and a half short of its border, but I learned one important lesson: revolution is self-actualization: it’s a journey, not a destination.

That journey continued into the summer of 1990. On a warm August evening, in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn- at the time, a predominantly white, working class neighborhood- a 16-year-old black teenager was shot and killed by a white teenager, who, along with his cohort, thought the black youth was in the neighborhood to stir up trouble. He wasn’t. He wanted to purchase a used car. His name was Yusuf Hawkins.

I felt connected to him, and while I didn’t know him personally, socially and culturally we were similar: both of us were born and reared in Brooklyn; we were teenagers with big dreams; we both had a high-top fade - popular among black youths in the late 80s and early 90s; and more likely than not, Yusuf listened to the same genre of music: Hip Hop. But I was most traumatized

by the timing of the killing and where it had taken place. It was 1990, New York City, not Birmingham of the 50s or Howard Beach of the mid-to-late 1980s. Is this still going on, I asked. In Brooklyn? Because Brooklyn is one of the most diverse places in the country, the racially- charged murder shook me up.

At the time, the black community, especially young black Americans, left the crack-ravaged 1980s behind and entered 1990 with a cultural and political reawakening; a renewed consciousness emerged where we started thinking critically about criminal justice, racism, and our standing in America and position in the world. The Stop the Violence movement in hip hop was prominent and united us; revolutionary songs like “Fight the Power”, by Public Enemy, energized us; and images of a brutal apartheid system in South Africa infuriated us. This was our civil rights moment and Yusuf Hawkins our Emmet Till. It all felt palpable and symbolic and we wanted to capture the moment to show solidarity to the movement.

Demonstrations and marches erupted throughout the city as New Yorkers demanded Yusuf’s killers be brought to justice. Behind the loud megaphones and in front of news cameras people of all racial backgrounds took their messages to the streets. The killing of Yusuf was talked about everywhere in the city; in every barber shop, supermarket, subway car, and on every stoop. I was caught off guard by the many white people that were inflamed, and secretly was satisfied they were. Finally, I thought, they’ve gotten a sense what it felt like to be enraged following an unjust, racist killing of a black person.

In school Monday morning, my peers spoke of a walk-out. During fourth period, about twenty of us met on the second floor in the school’s library, the first time so many of us congregated there at one time and it looked suspicious. Fortunately, I worked in the library, and my presence among twenty black boys sporting black champion hoodies and unlaced timberland boots relaxed the white librarians’ anxiety. They saw me among the group and probably thought we were working on a class project.

Eric suggested that we walk out of classes for one week, and though not unreasonable, logistically this would be very difficult. Derrick, who went by “D”, was the loudest, most persuasive voice. He was older than many of us and had street credibility; people listened to him, even some of the teachers. To this day, I don’t know why D chose Friday, but it became evident to me that this could be another Michael Griffin moment. This time around I was enrolled at another high school; I was a senior and more socially conscious, patient, and purposeful. D chose the day of the walk out and I insisted we do it during third period. That was deliberate because I didn’t care for my third period teacher – a 50-something-year-old white man, having pronounced inflexible ideas about inner city America and its inhabitants. Most of us had taken his class at some point and understood his ideas as “Good Ole Boy” politics. D agreed with me and it was unanimous: after attendance during third period, we were to walk out.

Because girls frequented the library more often, naturally, I shared the news with them. I understood that if they participated in our planned civil disobedience, boys would follow. This was strategic and it worked; in subsequent days, lower classmen I didn’t know asked me if I knew about “What’s going down on Friday.”

Friday came and I wasn’t nervous. I got ready for school and didn’t tell my mother what was planned, though by the looks of a 1970s photo of her sporting an afro and black dashiki with bursts of psychedelic colors- her right fist in the air- I might’ve made her proud. Still, I thought, better if she didn’t know- age, added weight, and the agony of living in public housing and being a single parent of three kids took a toll on her.

I kept it private from friends in the neighborhood, though, in hindsight, they would’ve been pleased to know that I took action against injustice, especially the older ones who gave me my first lessons on what it meant to be black in America. Regrettably, still, I had the arrogance of youth and didn’t want to hear “Good luck” wishes or “Be careful” concerns - and didn’t want anyone to live vicariously through me or have his or her trepidation weigh on me.

As I approached my school, the silence immediately near and around was deafening. There weren’t any students at the corner deli devouring their bacon and egg on toasted poppy seed bagel sandwich. More surprisingly, I didn’t see any of the cool kids smoking their Newports in the crevices of the school, getting their nicotine fix before first period. What did all this mean for the walk-out? Did people stay home to avoid ridicule and punishment, and was the walk-out called off? My uneasiness quickly evaporated because inside the building it was bustling with students. At the time, my school had one of the highest truancy rates in the city, but on this day, it appeared that all 3,500 students came to school. Homeroom had all 32 students for the first time in as many years, and this was the case in each class leading up to third period. It was obvious that word had gotten out and people had come to school to show unity and protest Yusuf’s death.

After Mr. Brandenburg took attendance in his third period business marketing class, Juney (Big June) stood, and as loud as he could yelled, “NO JUSTICE”, and we replied, “NO PEACE.” Everyone stood, and peacefully walked out the class, to be joined in the halls by other students shouting “No justice. No Peace.” It was well-choreographed, organized, and collectively we marched through the halls, down the stairs, and onto the football field. By all accounts it was a success, and while it wasn’t televised and didn’t produce any legislative changes, for one day, and what appeared to have been a brief moment, we had a collective voice, a unified purpose.

***

August 28, 1963. In our nation’s capital, before the watchful eyes of a stoic Lincoln, Dr. King professed to a quarter of a million people, “I have a dream”, and this assertion echoed across the globe and became a rallying cry of the disenfranchised, and he, the good Reverend, remembered as an icon of freedom, justice, and equality, and an agent of change. At the podium, he stood unapologetically black and heroic, divinely situated for the moment, unrelenting in his dramatic prose and command of presence. The most impressive orator during the civil rights era and arguably the greatest spellbinder in a generation, Dr. King was unparalleled in his call for economic and social justice and an end to racism in America.

August 28, 2020, on the 57th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I have a Dream” speech, Reverend Al Sharpton appeared at the same memorial of his predecessor, standing unapologetically black and heroic, fearless, and unwavering in his denouncement of racism and unlawful police killings of

black men, women, and children. He was ripe for the moment, having been on the battlefield for forty years, initially as a private and later as a 4-Star General, fighting for civil and human rights against white supremacy. He sounded the justice alarm for Michael Griffith and Yusuf Hawkins and marched through the heavily fortified blue wall of silence in honor of Sean Bell and Eric Garner. A failed assassination attempt in Bensonhurst by a knife-wielding hatemonger solidified Reverend Al’s position as the unmistaken leader of the modern civil rights era. The past is prologue.

***

The march is dubbed Commitment March: Get Your Knee off Our Necks, a clear rebuke to the killing of George Floyd, callously committed by the Minneapolis police officer, Devin Chauvin. Chauvin snatched life from Mr. Floyd by suffocating him with a knee pressed against the back of his neck for 8 minutes and 40 seconds. It was all caught on video by a fearless 14-year-old girl, and despite Chauvin’s threat of using mace or arresting her, she stood her ground and captured what sparked a global movement against racism, police brutality, and white supremacy. I saw the video on CNN, and it shook me to my core. This one was different because of the monstrosity of Chauvin’s actions: Chauvin didn’t use his department-issued firearm or a chokehold, and despite Mr. Floyd’s pleas for his deceased mother to rescue him from what he anticipated, – an untimely and cruel death - Chauvin ignored those cries and continued to apply force to Mr. Floyd’s neck. After seeing the video, I was emotionally sick for a week. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t go to work for two days and left early on another day. The killing of George Floyd opened old wounds I had from Yusuf Hawkins, and I felt compelled to take a stand, as I did previously, against police violence and institutionalized racism.

I’m here in Washington, D.C., with tens of thousands of black and brown Americans. White Americans are here, too, and other white people having pronounced eastern-European accents. I see a white man carrying a sign that reads, “If brothers don’t have justice, I don’t deserve peace”, and I think that message is profound and revolutionary. A group of Latinx men and women raise their right fists in solidarity and shout, “No Justice. No Peace!”, and a small group of east Asians sport black shirts with images of Malcolm X and Dr. King. My homemade sign on the front reads: ATTACKS ON AMERICA: 9/11, OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING, PEARL HARBOR, POLICE BRUTALITY. On the back, BLM PEROID. A reporter working for a local newspaper asks to take my picture with my sign, and I allow it.

Everyone is wearing masks protecting against COVID-19, but social distancing is impossible. People are on top of one another much like the morning and evening rush on the subway. Still, I walk through the crowd to the base of the memorial to get a better look at the speakers. Reverend Al is formidable, - he’s a force to be reckoned with- Martin Luther King III is deliberate and reflective, and Kamala Harris, through a pre-recorded message on the 80-foot monitor, is graceful. The families of victims of police violence speak and give a compelling rebuke to the injustices befallen on their loved ones. The pain George Floyd’s brother speaks of is real and definitive, the optimism Breonna Taylor’s mother demonstrates is moving, and Trayvon Martin’s mother shows elegance in the face of grief.

I march with them, alongside others, and collectively we memorialize Michael Griffin, who was killed by an angry white mob. We honor Yusuf Hawkins, who was murdered at the tender age of 16. We say his name loud, “Sean Bell”, whose car, on the eve of his wedding, was riddled with more than 40 bullets by eight NYPD officers. We articulate a prayer for Eric Garner, whose words, “I can’t breathe”, became a universal motto against police brutality. Tamir Rice is (and will forever be) in our thoughts, an 11-year-old boy shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer for playing with a toy gun. And we remember Philando Castile, who, despite having a license to carry a firearm, was brutally killed by a St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer.

About the author

Dana J. Jackson is a native New Yorker, born and reared in Brooklyn. As a clinical psychologist, he provides behavioral healthcare services to homeless families in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and U.S. Veterans that served in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Dana has been involved in social activism since his teenage years, participating in demonstrations, educating others on systemic racism, speaking truth to power, and endeavors to methodically dismantle white supremacy through education and writing.

about the author

Jocelyn Ulevicus is an American artist and writer with work forthcoming  or published in magazines such as the Free State Review, The Petigru  Review, Blue Mesa Review, and Humana Obscura amongst others. Working  from a female speculative perspective, themes of nature and the unseen;  and exit and entry are dominantly present in her work. Ulevicus is a  2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, and her in-progress memoir, The Birth of a  Tree was shortlisted for the 2019 Santa Fe Literary Award Program. She  currently resides in Amsterdam and is currently working on her first  book of poems. Follow her on Instagram @beautystills