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Throughout the sweltering afternoon, the crowd anticipated one speaker more eagerly than anyone else: Jesse Jackson, 41, founder of Operation PUSH (for People United to Serve Humanity), who is in the highly public process of deciding whether or not to make a bid for the presidency. Taking nearly three times the five minutes allotted to speakers, the safari-suited and hoarse-throated Jackson did not tip his hand one way or the other on the presidential question. But as the marchers hushed for one of the few sustained periods of quiet in a long day of oratory, Jackson delivered a spirited and frequently rousing, if occasionally strident, political address.
Using slogans that often crop up in his speeches, he concluded: "Turn on Reagan. Turn to each other. Our day has come. March on! Don't let them break your spirit. We will rise, never to fall again! From slave ship to championship! From the outhouse to the statehouse to the courthouse to the White House! We will march on! March on! March on! Our time has come!" The crowd cheered enthusiastically, breaking into the chant that follows Jackson at black and integrated gatherings almost everywhere these days: "Run, Jesse, run! Run, Jesse, run!" Jackson stepped back to the speaker's stand to acknowledge the ovation, flashing V signs with both hands.
Much of the rhetoric on and off the speaking platform was not so much pro any cause as anti-Ronald Reagan. Lee D. Harris, a retired auto worker from Linden, N.J., said simply that "we are trying to get a message to the President that people need jobs, and this is the way to do it." Even some of the musical entertainment took digs at the President: Veteran Folk Singer Pete Seeger picked away at a ditty with the lyrics: "This old man, he did four, now we're in El Salvador . . . This old man, he did six, he did better in the flicks . . . This old man, he did eight, he helped Nancy decorate..."
The commemorative march was conceived two years ago by Coretta King and officials of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
The inclusion of peace groups was probably the most debated decision, since they added what some civil rights traditionalists view as an unrelated and controversial element to the cause. Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young defends the broadened coalition, pointing out that King, shortly before his death, turned against the Viet Nam War as an impediment to black progress. Says Young: "Without peace, there are no jobs or freedom."
Others disagree. Officials of the National Urban League, one of the eight sponsors of the 1963 march, declined to join in this time, saying they feared that its "focus on a broad range of issues is likely to limit its impact." Bayard Rustin, stage manager of the original event, was another prominent no-show in 1983. Some Jewish organizations, angered by language in an early version of a march manifesto implying disapproval of the level of U.S. arms shipments to Israel, also decided to withhold support. In the end, however, the offending passages were toned down, and one of the march prayers was led by Rabbi Alexander Schindler, head of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.