Perhaps the main reason I became active in the anti-war movement was the changes in the direction of the country I felt occurred because of the war. When the Civil Rights Act was signed into law in the summer of 1964, I felt an era of real and positive change had come, that this was the just the beginning and great things were going happen for my people, things that had been too long denied, but most of all I believed that once our feet were set upon this upward path it could not be reversed, that the Promised Land of equality and justice was inevitable. I had faith in the process. I cannot believe how naive I was.
By the late summer of 1965 many of our “allies” in Congress were backing off their support of our cause, especially Congressmen who represented all those nice and neat northern suburbs. This was what killed the Open Housing Act. It was no coincidence that this happened at the same time that the SCLC and CORE had adopted resolutions critical of the war and Dr. King had criticized the draft as discriminatory. It was disheartening to see men like Sen. Dirksen and Vice President Humphrey make statements that called us Communist dupes, they sounded just like Wallace or Eastland. LBJ sold out his supposed Great Society to get lock step support for his war in Congress. What was Richard Nixon doing in that Administration? And why was Bobby Kennedy so quiet about it?
Back home in Maryland, I joined the Coalition for Peace, a Washington based group that opposed the war. There were many veterans of the Freedom Marches joining us, only now we were planning peace marches. I spent most of the time writing and editing press releases and letters to the editors to newspapers around the country. As a teacher I had long ago overcome any stage fright, so I took part in forums and debates on the war that were held around the DC area, usually on a college campus. One time I took part in a radio debate on the war with pro-war Columnist Robert Novak and I believe I held my own, my secret was that I never pretended to be something I wasn’t; I was a school teacher who was working for a worthy cause. I was nearly 30 and I knew it, I never grew an Afro or put my hair in braids, always dressed as though I was going to class and never forgot that I was a professional.
Of course I was going to be there for the March on the Pentagon. By the spring of 1967, we felt that momentum was going our way. The ever increasing draft calls, the invasion of Laos, and the canceling of college deferments had set off a huge backlash against the war among the young people and more and more their parents. Dr. King had just denounced the war in the harshest terms yet. I had journeyed up to New York for a rally and heard him say “this war is a blasphemy to everything that America stands for. Our young men are being sent to die in a conflict that supports an illegal and corrupt government that is despised by the very people it purportedly represents.” That was music to our ears.
On that beautiful April morning I was so proud to see that we were at least 100,000 strong as we gathered on the Mall and in East Potomac Park, I was among people who was asked to speak to a group before we marched. I made my remarks brief and simply reminded them that we were doing God’s work, I truly believed that, but I was surprised at the angry tone of many of the other speakers, especially the young people, I don’t think God’s work was on their minds when we streamed across the Memorial and 14th Street Bridges to confront that five sided temple of war, the Pentagon. It was ringed with soldiers with fixed bayonets there to protect the great building from the disgrace that would occur if even one of us were able to as much as touch its great walls. Our numbers were so large that we easily filled the huge parking lots and surged up to the entrances, if not for the sight of the bayonets on the end of the rifles of the soldiers, we might have rushed the doors right then and there. Instead there was a stand off, if the other side would not move, neither would we. “Peace now, we will not be moved!” we chanted, and then the word quickly passed that we should all sit down to further show them that we could not be deterred. Somebody brought around a case of Coca-Colas and passed them out, just like at a church picnic.
As the time passed, our chants changed. “Throw down your weapons,” we shouted to the young men in uniform protecting the building, “desert the death machine.” Then as we felt bolder we started to chant in unison “Nixon come out, you can’t hide!” and then alternated it with “Face the people!” Then shortly after twelve noon a helicopter lifted out of the great building’s center courtyard and flew off to the east across the Potomac into the city. “He’s gone!” people began to shout, we had no evidence, but we believed that Nixon was on that helicopter and that he had fled from us-the American people who had come to demand that he end his unjust war. And he had fled from our righteous wrath. We climbed to our feet and hugged one another in a victory embrace. I saw some people doing dances of joy. For a brief moment I believed we had won, all one hundred thousand of us had done it. There in the parking lot of the Pentagon, surrounded by black, white, yellow, young, middle-aged, old, rich, and poor, we had come together on that beautiful spring day, under a deep blue sky, and by force of will, we had changed the course of history. It should have been one of the greatest days of our lives
Then at mid-afternoon, men with bullhorns appeared behind the line of soldiers and announced that we must begin to disperse immediately, that Martial Law had been declared. I couldn’t believe it, Martial Law in Arlington, Va.! In a moment our euphoria disappeared and angry determination took its place. “We will not be moved! Peace Now!” became our cry. Someone told me to look behind us and far over the heads of the marchers I could barely see that something was going on. I could make out the army green canvas of troop transport trucks. A wave of apprehension swept over the crowd. What we didn’t know at the time was that a large contingent of US Marshals, FBI Agents and regular Army Troops had been assembled at Fort Myer, adjacent to the Pentagon, and that they had now moved into position behind us. Once they had deployed, the men with bullhorns announced that we had one last chance to disperse.
The crowd’s mood began to turn very ugly, they began to shout obscenities at the troops and then they began to throw things. I don’t know who started it; later there would be accounts of demonstrators attempting to rush one of the entrances and I definitely believe there were FBI plants among the marchers, put there with orders to do something to provoke a violent response. Then again, people do things in a mob that they would never do by themselves. The clean cut young man, who had been standing next to me, snatched the Coke bottle I had been drinking from out of my hand, and hurled it at the building. It smashed impotently against a second story window, as futile a gesture as I have ever seen. I tried to berate him for what he had done, but nobody’s voice could be heard over the din by now. I didn’t have to be told that things were about to turn from ugly to nasty and it was a very good time to leave. I guess my courage had run out, I’d heard all the great arguments for civil disobedience, but I just couldn’t sit there and take a night stick upside the head for my principles.
By now the forces of law and order had all the provocation they needed, they formed a wedge and plowed into the crowd that was massed in front of the river entrance, that caused the demonstrators to turn upon the troops, fights broke out everywhere and more than a few skulls were cracked by rifle butts. It was madness, total madness no matter which way I turned, but I got caught up with group of people that was trying to make their way out of the parking area. I remember being terrified that I would fall and be trampled-some unlucky souls were that day. The group I was with reached the edge of the parking lot just as they began to fire tear gas into the out of control crowd; somewhere close by came the sound of gunshots. It had thinned out enough for me to start running now, right past a squad of US Marshals and joined a band of demonstrators scaling the wall at Arlington Cemetery; it was the only route of escape. Once on the other side, we sat down on the green grass in front of all those crosses and hugged each other and cried uncontrollably. From on the other side of the wall we could hear the screams and shouts of the battle we had left behind; even in the supposed safety of the National Cemetery we could smell the acrid scent of the tear gas. Then a long haired boy ran by and said that the Army was rounding everybody up, mass arrests and if we didn’t want to find ourselves in a detention camp we’d better move our asses. My compatriots whom had made it over the wall with me consisted of a few college kids from Columbia University, a couple of social workers from Philadelphia and a Professor of Law from Harvard; not a one of them looked like they had any idea what to do. We were more than beaten, we were crushed, but I wasn’t about to spend one minute in anybody’s detention camp; it was time to put some distance between us and that place. So I told them that if they wanted to get out of there, then they’d better follow me. We hiked down to the Memorial Gate where I’d planned to catch a bus, but a half dozen police cars pulled up just when we arrived, so I told my band of brothers that we’d better keep moving. Had to walk all the way across the Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial before we caught a bus, I thought the law professor would have a heart attack before we made it. We agreed that it would be best if we got out of the city as fast as we could, there were rumors that there would be a house to house sweep to round up anybody involved in the Peace March. My new friends spent the night with me at my house near Baltimore; to this day we still send each other Christmas Cards.