They gathered at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., under a sky that threatened rain, but nobody was leaving. They had come to bear witness, to recall a time when ordinary Americans found the kind of courage to ignite a movement. They came to add their personal reflections to the Voices of Civil Rights project.
For Gwendolyn Green Britt, the awakening occurred in the summer of 1960. As an 18-year-old college student, she joined a group that challenged the whites-only policy at Glen Echo Park in suburban Maryland, became one of the earliest "Freedom Riders," and later spent 40 days in a Mississippi state prison for encouraging black people to register to vote.
At a replica of a 1960s lunch counter, Jacqueline J. Johnson, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, talked about the unfinished business of the movement and recalled her upbringing in Alaska.
Across the Mall, the Voices of Triumph choir served up the kind of inspirational songs that helped sustain the movement's foot soldiers for the battles ahead. General Donald L. Scott, the Deputy Librarian of Congress, emphasized the importance of preserving these memories: "Your grandchild and my grandchild have no idea what we went through to get to where we are today."
As our bus prepared to roll out on our trek--35 cities in 22 states in the next 70 days--collecting these stories of civil rights triumphs and tragedies, I was mindful of Rabbi David Saperstein's charge that we "pass on the light."
Aboard the Freedom Express, it is our intent to do just that.
