Events, Peace Development., gatherings and meetings

I WAS THERE

“Close your eyes.
What is your dream?
What are you most passionate about?
See yourself in five years.
Take a deep breath.
See your dream,”
the voice continued.
I slipped easily into the music and visualization.
I saw myself on what appeared to be a classroom stage.
Three or four children and several animals were there.
Everyone was talking through my voice.
I could not see an audience, but I felt laughter.
Suddenly, the music lowered and I was surprised to hear
the familiar voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The words of his famous I HAVE A DREAM speech rang out through the room.
In an instant I was swooshed back in time to 1963.
I was on the greens at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.
I could feel the energy and the warm air, filled with expectancy.
I saw the green shirtwaist dress and comfortable walking shoes I wore that day.
I was aware of my shallow breathing, just as it had been on August 28th 1963 in that crowded mass of freedom seeking humanity.
We were so close together, we were touching.
I felt the discomfort of my husbands arm against mine, wet with perspiration
I remembered, we arrived in Washington early and joined the swelling crowds, smiling and speaking about the large numbers of folk arriving.
We were all trying to get as close to the Lincoln Memorial where the speakers stage was situated as we could.

Suddenly, the scene shifted in my mind view and there were lots of open spaces
Just as I thought… “what happened?
where did the others go?”
They told me;
“We are no longer there, we have left that planet.”
Shaken, I listened, trying to discern what was going on in my mind and in that room.
Dr. King’s melodious voice continued but something was missing,
then I realized we were listening to an edited version of his speech.
With that realization the voices came through just as they had on that hot August day in 1963.
Dr. King’s voice would say;
“ I have a dream today!”
The remembered crowd would respond like a spirit filled Baptist church on
a summer Sunday morning.
“Yeah!!”
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”
The crowd roared:
“Amen!!”
“Yeah!!”
Dr, King’s voice continued the I have a dream refrain, and the crowd continued it’s roar of approval.

“Blink your eyes and open them,
Come back into the room.
How do you feel?”
Some people were quite emotional.
We were asked to share our feelings.
I raised my hand and said it brought back so many memories, and made me
sad, because I was there.
“I know what you mean” Barry Spilchek, the facilitator said, “I was there too
“NO Barry, I was really there”, I said,
“I was in that march on Washington in 1963.
His face full of surprise, he said to the rest of the audience.
“WOW! This lady said she was there!
“What do you remember?” He asked.
Of all the things I could have said as I tried to control my emotion
I replied…”I remember the dress I was wearing.”
I expected others to say they were there also, but no one did.
I was the only person in the room who was a part of that historic march.
I didn’t think it was a big deal since most of my East Coast peers had attended the 1963 march also.
But, for the people in that auditorium at the Westin Hotel in Los Angeles, California, it was indeed a big deal.
Many wanted to talk with me about it.
Some wanted me to tell them what I remembered,
and what it was like to be there.
Others spoke of being honored to meet someone who had been present when
Dr. Martin Luther King made the I HAVE A DREAM speech.
Not wanting to misrepresent myself as being an important part of the march, I continued to say I was just one of the thousands or so ordinary Americans who marched for Freedom that day.
“There were no ordinary folks in that march, Rize” many replied.
“You were all an important part of this country’s history. You were all hero’s”
My thinking about my personal role began to shift.
“Rize, you have to write this,” some insisted.
Still I protested, saying there were hundreds of books about Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr, and I did not know him personally.
What could I possible write about Dr. King that had not already been written?
They countered, they were not suggesting I should write about Dr. King but I should write my story…my personal experience.
“Rize If you don’t write it, who will?
You said you saw the vacant spaces left by all those who were there but are now dead, who will write it Rize?”
The idea began to germinate in my mind as I thought of all the voices that could not be heard and those that may not be heard if I did not tell our story.

The face of another departed friend, Tom Feelings flashed through my mind as I remembered him lecturing and encouraging me on my responsibilities as
an elder.
“You must tell the stories you know Rize, to whom much is given much is required,” Tom had said as we shared stories and laughter all the way from
Columbia, South Carolina, to Asheville, North Carolina and back.

People were still talking to me as my mind took cosmic flights and joined with the voices in my head asking me to tell our story.
My mind spun and traveled, picking up bits of memories and words tossed
and yelled at me from friends and colleagues long gone from planet earth.
I saw faces of folks who stood beside me and touched me in the crush of bodies, now all hazy and grey except for the eyes.
Their eyes found mine and pleaded with me to tell their story.
Sharing myself with the living and the dead took its toll,
I felt drained.
Just when I thought I could not take another step, someone would step into
my energy field and wrap me in a hug.
Restored, I continued to answer questions and tell what I remembered about
the 1963 March on Washington late into the night.

Sleep hid, as spirit voices surrounded my exhausted form asking the question over and over…
“Will you write our story?”
“Will you write our story?”
Not certain if I could, I cried out of my stressed being,
“ I don’t know if I can write it.”
From the spirit voices I heard my mother’s voice… “Of course you can Baby,
We will help you.”
A vision of my parents appeared, then vanished from my mind.
Near dawn I slept, and woke refreshed, knowing I could and I would write my story and the story of those who left before they told their stories
and those still here
who no longer remembers.

I am still collecting and writing the stories.

Miz Rize
April 7, 2008

copyright 2003