Clergy march for racial justice on anniversary of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech

WASHINGTON — LaAnthia Washington lost a tooth weeks ago and had a dental appointment Monday. But the Forestville, Md., sought healing instead at the Ministers March for Justice.

She was troubled by terrorist acts, mass killings and abuse of children. So she wrote out a sign quoting the Bible verse from 2 Chronicles 7:14.

“I believe our land is hurting right now,” said Washington, a deacon at her Baptist church. “We’re the people coming together in His name.”

She was part of a crowd of several thousand clergy members from Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh religions who marched on the anniversary of the March on Washington in 1963 and the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till in Mississippi.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speech at the earlier march. The Monday event began at the King memorial on the National Mall and headed to the Justice Department.

“It’s time for moral leaders of all religions to get rid of their fear and their political laryngitis and stand up together,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who led the march with Martin Luther King III. “We agree that morality must be above party politics.”

Other speakers described reasons for the march broadly as unfinished business, whether for voting rights, economic opportunity, health care and criminal justice changes. 

But emotions ran high as speakers blasted the white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12 and President Trump’s pardon Friday of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of defying a judge’s order to release from jail people suspected of immigration offenses.

From the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey in Trenton, the Rev. Brian Jemmott said he was seeking justice for those who have been incorrectly incarcerated. His first march was in Atlanta, for the immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was shot multiple times by New York city police in February 1999 after being mistaken for a rape suspect.

“At least we can get attention from having a focus on the deficiencies that we see, so that people are not losing the issues,” Jemmott said.

The Right Rev. William Stokes of the diocese said Charlottesville revealed the graphic need for serious work on race across the country.

“This kind of event shows that people of all kinds are coming together to say that that is intolerable to us,” Stokes said. “I’m here in solidarity as a member of the white privileged part of the culture. I think it’s really important for us to stand with and speak out.”

The march came the same morning USA TODAY announced the Trump administration would provide surplus military equipment to local police departments, a move that rankled the crowd suspicious of police brutality.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader who was with King when he was killed, voiced concern in an interview at the march about shifting federal spending away from pursuing violent, militarized white supremacists and toward voter suppression.

“It’s a tough season for all of America,” Jackson said. “But if we resist, we win.”

Rather than aim for hundreds of thousands of participants that attended King’s speech, Sharpton said the march was built on 1,000 religious leaders of various faiths. More than 3,000 religious leaders registered and hundreds more lay people joined them.

Hugs were common among the multi-racial crowd where kente cloth was as common as clerical collars. Hand-written signs carried messages such as “Love Thy Neighbor” and “Jesus Loves Everyone, No Exceptions.”

“There is one race and that’s the human race,” said the Rev. Helen Lockwood of Calvary United Methodist Church in Berlin, Md. “We want equality for all.”

She was with friends who all signed up for the march before Charlottesville, but that event had strengthened their resolve.

“We would like Washington to know: stop trying to take us backwards, let’s go forward,” said Vanessa Stephens-Lee, senior pastor at Metropolitan-Zion United Methodist Church Ministries in Denton, Md. “Enough is enough.”

Snapping a picture at the King memorial before the march began, Monique Maxwell of Brooklyn, N.Y., said the event provided an important educational experience for her 16-year-old daughter Nyomi even if school hasn’t started yet.

The lesson that Nyomi drew from the march: If faced with injustice, “do something about it.”