The Personal is Political. The Political is Personal.

 

concrete details

from interview with Rachelle Horowitz, transportation director of the 1963 March on Washington:

Somebody at the National Council or the Red Cross said that the sandwiches had to be peanut butter and jelly. And Bayard came back to a staff meeting, and he said, O.K., we're writing this manual, and we have to tell people to bring peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, no mayonnaise. Somebody said, But Bayard -- And he said, This is not debatable! It became this sine qua non. Clearly what everybody was worried about was that you didn't want egg salad and mayonnaise spoiling on the road and people getting sick.

Interview included with numerous others in quite well done Time magazine 50th anniversary issue.

Though most inspiring of all was actually marching, walking and talking this past weekend with those who'd been there 50 years earlier.

More food-related details in context in "Eating on the March: Food at the 1963 March on Washington," on the Smithsonian site, here.

Meanwhile, regarding remembrance of historical specificity and the forgetting of it too, USA Today's admirably comprehensive (with even magnanimous inclusion of an essay by Haley Barbour! -- yes, that historically forgetful guy) and nicely done anniversary special edition is impossible not to read cover to cover, including the last paragraph of the tourism-themed last page (p. 71), which knocks the breath out of the reader with the following:

Just a stone's throw from the White House, the Willard Hotel is where Martin Luther King added the finishing touches to his legendary "I Have a Dream" speech. Although the room he stayed in was destroyed during a recent renovation, visitors can spend the night in a suite dedicated to King.

(emphasis supplied)
























posted by TiR at 7:01 AM