Friday, August 23, 2013

“I Was There!” Teachers are Witness to History at the March on Washington | NEA Today

“I Was There!” Teachers are Witness to History at the March on Washington | NEA Today:

“I Was There!” Teachers are Witness to History at the March on Washington

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Selma to Montgomery March
This picture was taken by Harry Klugel on the march from Selma to Montgomery. He took it with a school camera provided by his principal at Wheaton High School in Silver Spring, MD
In his first week as a high school teacher, Harry Klugel nervously asked his principal for a day off. It was August of 1963 and Klugel wanted to attend the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where thousands were expected to gather around the call for civil rights and economic justice in a nation torn by racism and segregation.
Much to his surprise, the principal at Wheaton High School in Montgomery County, Maryland, less that a decade after being officially segregated, allowed him to go to the march because “He knew it would be a historic day, and I was one of his history teachers”.
And a historic day it was. Over 250,000 people gathered on the Mall in Washington to demand justice and equality for all, in what turned out to be largest civil rights march in history.
After a series of speeches from clergy, union and civil rights leaders, and musical performances by artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Mahalia Jackson, the demonstration culminated with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
“I think the crowd felt that this was a history changing kind of event. That they were involved in something that was going to be in the history books.”
When segregation was the norm
That same morning, across the river in Alexandria, Virginia, Gwen Day Fuller and her family boarded a bus to head to Washington.
Fuller, an elementary school teacher who retired from Massachusetts, had grown up under the harshness of a segregated southern city, and had suffered directly the violence of racism. As a young girl she was once rushed to the hospital after being burned by a group of white men who threw firecrackers at her family.
“We had separate water fountains, separate bathrooms, separate swimming pools. We couldn’t go to the 
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