When I learned that the anti-war movement had planned a huge March on Washington for November 15th, 1969, I knew I needed to add myself to the multitude of others that would be there. I naively believed with so many people going to Washington, Nixon might recognize what massive opposition there was to the Vietnam War, but he ignored us, and left town over that weekend to be with his flag-waving base.
Fortunately, locally someone had organized a bus to carry everyone who wanted to attend the march. I traveled overnight on the bus with others from Evansville to get to Washington DC. Upon disembarking I was amazed at to see how many rows of other buses from other states were already parked and unloading the thousands of other protesters. It is still considered the largest demonstration ever to take place in Washington DC. The crowd was so big, that during the event I didn’t really know what was going on, I just followed with them as the massive crowd moved along.
There were speeches and music (Pete Seeger, Peter Paul and Mary, John Denver, and Arlo Guthrie) but I didn’t see or hear any of it, because my section of the crowd was still probably a mile away from where that happened.
I spent the night sleeping with others in one of the many school gymnasiums that had been opened up to provide shelter to the demonstrators. The next day everyone re-boarded their buses to return back to their home towns. It was a whirlwind weekend trip.
Even though all I did was march with the two hundred and fifty thousand others, all of whom felt the importance of stopping the useless slaughter, and although the march didn’t end the war (in the following years, thousands and thousands more were still destined to die, or be physically and psychologically maimed for the vanity of politicians), I am proud that at least I made an effort to stop the madness.
View my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment