Marcia Brown
Friday’s march was held on the 57th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the death toll from COVID-19 approaches 180,000 Americans and disproportionately impacts Black Americans, masked protesters thronged the National Mall to protest another pandemic—police brutality against Black Americans.
The Rev. Al Sharpton first announced the march during his eulogy for George Floyd in June, and the National Action Network dubbed it the “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” March on Washington. Held on the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the march brought tens of thousands to Washington. The 1963 March on Washington boasted 250,000 people in attendance, but due to coronavirus and travel restrictions, organizers expected 50,000 people to attend Friday’s event.
NAN, one of the event’s organizers, discouraged protesters from traveling from out of town—especially from coronavirus hot spots—and instead encouraged people to hold concurrent marches in their cities. But for some, traveling to Washington was worth it.
Jake Burnett said he and several friends had traveled from Chicago to attend the march. They said they donned masks and hoped for the best when they boarded an airplane. “It was worth it,” Burnett said. “I couldn’t miss this one.” Sitting near the Reflecting Pool, he held a flagpole displaying the LGBTQ Black Lives Matter flag and the Trans Pride flag above the crowd. When he’s not taking them to protests, he said that he displays the flags from his bedroom window in Chicago—backlit and overlooking a busy street.
Others didn’t travel as far. One woman, who works for the federal government and asked not to be named, said that she came from Alexandria. She said she came by herself but that she thinks it’s important to show up and show support. She wore a pink shirt bearing the words “Peace Walk,” which she said was organized by Alexandria sibling teenagers this past June.
Marcia Brown
Artists’ renditions of George Floyd were everywhere at the march. His death at the hands of Minneapolis police inspired the name ‘Get Your Knee Off Our Necks’ March on Washington.
Another protester traveled from New York. Olivia Hurley, 18, displayed her artwork alongside the Reflecting Pool depicting Aiyana Jones, a second grader who was killed during a police raid of her home, and an inverted American flag. Where the stars are normally, Hurley wrote the names of people from nearly all 50 states killed by the police. As the edge of the flag—in black and white—burns away, it reveals a flag which Hurley says represents all of us. “[You] only burn the flag when it’s not fit to be shown anymore,” she said, adding that right now, it’s not.
Speakers included Martin Luther King III, labor leaders, and members of Congress, as well as the families whose loved ones were victims of police brutality.
When George Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, spoke, he was overcome with emotion. “I wish George were here to see this right now,” he said. When he was unable to speak, the crowd responded by chanting his brother’s name and cheering him on. Breonna Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, spoke. “What we need is change, and we’re at the point to get that change, but we have to stand together,” she said. When she, too, was overcome, the crowd lifted up her daughter’s name, too. “Say her name, Breonna Taylor,” they chanted.
Many attendees of the march had also attended the first March on Washington in 1963. One of them was a volunteer. Taller than most, Tony Jackson sported an orange vest as he handed out Gatorade and water to the crowd. Jackson volunteers frequently through his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha—the fraternity of Thurgood Marshall—and through the Masons.
Jackson said he was born in Washington, D.C., and now lives in Bowie, Maryland, but he remembers coming to the 1963 march as a four-year-old. “My mother brought us down,” he said. Friday’s march—with people dipping their feet in the Reflecting Pool, crowding the shade, and enduring Washington’s sweltering summer—reminded him of that famous day in 1963.
“Change has to come now,” he said. “If not now, it will not happen.”
At the end of the march, protesters led by orange-vested volunteers walked half a mile toward the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, where they were directed to disperse. Some protesters headed toward the Department of Justice, calling for the DOJ to reopen police brutality cases, and others instead headed to Black Lives Matter Plaza.
Marcia Brown
Young protesters hold a sign displaying one of the signature chants of the march.
