The powerful impact of the March on Washington still endures — and it still inspires

Some people are born into politics.

They attend precinct meetings as toddler children to community leaders and put up campaign signs when they’re barely big enough to hold a post-hole digger.

That wasn’t me.

Others come to politics in college when they read about the great student movements of history and begin to believe that they can change the world.

That wasn’t me either.

My first introduction into politics came as a 10-year-old in Mrs Petrey’s fifth-grade class when I was elected to serve as Student Council vice president.

It wasn’t as glamorous as you might think.

It mostly consisted of meetings with teachers and the principal after school discussing how we should be examples of obedience and respect to the rest of the student body.

But while it could have ended there, it didn’t.

You see, it occurred to me that if I could lead my school peers in compliance, I could lead them in other directions, too.

I began to understand how perceptions become ideas — and how ideas become actions. I began to understand how changing one changed the other — and you could use that understanding to mold the future.

It’s being shaped every day by events (some big, some small).

It’s being shaped by ideas (some good, some bad).

It’s being shaped by people (some known,some unknown).

Changing perceptions

It was in the spirit of that tradition that six “troublemakers” decided to march on August 28, 1963. It was just a notion at first, a demonstration to raise awareness, grab attention and change perceptions.

They weren’t sure what it would be. But they knew it had to be big.

So it was fitting that these “agitators” had become known as known as ‘The Big Six.”

They were:

▪ James Farmer (the lead founder of the Congress of Racial Equality).

▪ The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference).

▪ John Lewis (chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee).

▪ A. Philip Randolph (founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters).

▪ Roy Wilkins (executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

▪ Whitney Young Jr. (executive director of the National Urban League).

And so they got to work organizing a march to demand:

▪ The passage of meaningful civil rights legislation.

▪ The elimination of racial segregation in public schools.

▪ Protection for demonstrators against police brutality.

▪ A major public works program to provide jobs.

▪ The passage of a law prohibiting racial discrimination in public and private hiring.

▪ A higher minimum wage.

And many more demands that, sadly, we’re still fighting for today.

From idea to march

Their idea became The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

It drew hundreds of thousands of attendees to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

It became an event that defined the civil rights movement for a generation.

It became the moment when the world would first hear a young minister from Atlanta utter these words: “I have a dream.”

Many more miles

Today we look back to that moment 57 years ago and we recognize this hard reality:

Though we have covered many miles of progress in this great country, there are still many miles left to go.

America cannot default on the promissory note of freedom and security of justice that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about 57 years ago.

Our elected leaders cannot forget the “oceans of justice” and “rivers of fairness” that our beloved John Lewis fought for our country to bring to life.

Because there will be a day that we will be asked the very question that the legendary U.S Rep. Elijah Cummings raised last year, only months before his death.

“When we’re dancing with the angels,” Cummings said, “the question will be asked: ‘(What) did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact?’”

This is what I hope our collective answer will be to that question:

We did the best we could with the time we had.

Antjuan Seawright is a Democratic political strategist, founder and CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC, and a CBS News political contributor. He is a Winthrop University graduate who grew up in Swansea and now lives in Lower Richland County. Follow him on Twitter @antjuansea.