The respectful relationship that existed between the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and the John F Kennedy (JFK) Administration in 1963 is in sharp contrast to the wide gulf between the Black Lives Matter Movement and today’s White House insecurity. So far the incumbent president has seen protesters numbering several thousands in the streets of Washington and on the periphery of the White House.

In 1963 President Kennedy was faced with a planned protest march and rally that was to number over 250,000 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. For Kennedy, fresh from his nail-biting confrontation the year before with the Russians over the Cuban Missile Crisis, a march of this size and this nature was a daunting prospect, to say the least. Racial strife had gripped the country. Between May and August 1963 there had been 1,340 demonstrations in more than 200 cities. All across America black people were grappling with a sustained period of beatings, brutality, imprisonment, snarling dogs, fire hoses, tear gas, and insults.

On June 11, 1963 he had made a national speech in which he proposed legislation that would later become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Expressing civil rights as a moral issue, he had moved past his previous appeals to legality and asserted that the pursuit of racial equality was a just cause.

So, later that month, when he was having a cordial meeting with the leaders of the black movement, he was expecting their cooperation and support and, hopefully, a breakthrough towards peaceful resolutions to the problems. The group included 23-year-old John Lewis who had just been elected to lead the Student Coordinating Committee. (This is the same Congressman John Lewis who we saw on television supporting Joe Biden for president.

“It was a very moving meeting,” Lewis said. “The president was deeply concerned about what was happening in the American South. So the president wanted to know what could be done.”

But when they told him about the planned march on Washington, Kennedy drew back and said, “Hold on.”

“You could tell by the very body language of President Kennedy… he started moving and twisting in his chair. And his facial expression — he just thought it would be chaos,” recalled Lewis.

“And the president sort of said, ‘Well, I think we’re gonna have some problems.’”

Despite being in favour of civil rights, Kennedy’s reason for opposing the march was simple. The Kennedy Administration was afraid that if there was violence on the march it would mean that the Civil Rights Act, which he had just introduced, would never get passed.

In fact, there was a concerted effort by the Administration to get it called off, but gradually, as Kennedy began to see the need for a successful and peaceful march, his attitude began to change.

See how vastly different this was from today’s Administration’s attitude, there came a proposal laid on the table that Kennedy should speak at the March. The president, it appears, was figuring that if you can’t beat them join them.

Well, common sense prevailed. Organisers Bayard Rustin and Courtland Cox said they knew this would be a disaster because the stage would have been taken over by Kennedy just because he is the president.

In an amusing side to this part of the story, Cox said Rustin and he excused themselves from that particular meeting and took a walk to the bathroom. Clearly flummoxed about the problem, Rustin took a sip from his back-pocket flask and came up with an idea on the fly.

“And Bayard got back into the meeting and he literally made this up,” Cox recalled. “He said that he heard… if the president spoke the Negroes were going to stone him.”

After that, the idea of Kennedy speaking at the march was never considered. The focus, instead, has always been on Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s speech.

But the build-up to that extraordinary event makes one epic tale of planning, meetings, vision, struggles, differences, unity, strategies, and the immense courage of 250,000 people who took enormous risks to stage what turned out to be a peaceful and remarkable demonstration.

It was not easy to get so many people into a venerated space in the capital city of America. The organisers promoted the march through meetings, press conferences, telephone calls, radio and television, church meetings, posters, buttons, and other paraphernalia. As the momentum grew, “the Big Six” got bomb threats at their homes and offices. Roy Williams, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) president, was told he would be assassinated if he didn’t leave the country.

For many it would be their first time in Washington, they would not even know how to get to the monument. Marshals were appointed to walk the city to provide direction and assistance. Advisories were issued on train schedules, what to wear, what to bring, what to eat, where to park. Subcommittees were appointed for arranging portables, water fountains, doctors, nurses, charter buses, public address systems, special fares, armbands, signs.

They came by road, bus, rail, and air. Some camped overnight. They came from Little Rock, Birmingham, Milwaukee, St Louis, Florida, and elsewhere. On the said morning 450 buses left Harlem for Washington. By 8:00 am, 100 buses per hour were streaming through the Baltimore Harbour tunnel. They carried picnic baskets, water jugs, Bibles, and a willingness to march and pray in the face of possible retaliation.

They had a right to be concerned. Kennedy had ordered a mobilisation of security as a pre-emptive measure, unprecedented outside of wartime. Some 5,900 police officers were on duty. National Guard officers numbering 2,000 were called out. Over 150 FBI agents were assigned to mingle with the crowd, while others were stationed on rooftops and around sensitive areas. By mid-morning five military bases on the outskirts of the capital were active and in-waiting. The District of Columbia was placed under martial law and Washington virtually locked down for the day.

But the organisers continued to work peacefully and assiduously. By mid-morning more than 2,000 buses, 21 chartered trains, numerous cars, had provided orderly transport, while all regularly scheduled trains and planes were filled to capacity. As it turned out the day was not only orderly, but it was integrated. Blacks hugged whites and it was a rainbow coalition in Washington. Celebrities Harry Belafonte, Charlton Heston, Diahann Carroll, Paul Newman, Sammy Davis Jr, Marlon Brando, and others of different hue and shades walked with people who had put at risk their own personal safety, their jobs, and their homes.

Mahalia Jackson sang How I got over, while Marian Anderson sang He’s got the whole world in His hands. Speakers from the representative groups addressed the crowd, and then it was time for King Jr, the untitled leader of the civil rights movement, to stand.

Now here is another interesting side to what took place that day. It was August 28, 1963 and, believe it or not, Martin Luther King Jr was losing his audience. His speech was not going down well. It was supposed to be the major speech of the afternoon, eagerly awaited by the millions following on radio and TV, and to provide upliftment for the spirits that hungered for the redeeming words of freedom and equality championed by King Jr and his colleagues. But the speech had been doctored by too many hands and, in what was an unusual practice for him, he had allowed it to be edited by his fellow programme directors for theme and appeal. The disappointment was creeping across the platform and around the park.

Legendary gospel singer and one of King’s best friends, Mahalia Jackson, sensed it too. She saw the moment slipping away and, in her own peculiar style and deepest southern accent, she yelled from somewhere near the front, “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin, tell ’em about the dream!” In an instant King shifted gear, abandoned his prepared text, and with hand pointed at the sky began his spontaneous and memorable oration based on personal rhetoric that Mahalia had been privy to, “I have a dream…”

The sudden shift of momentum that roused the world’s attention is only one of the many inside stories that makes the circumstances surrounding the March on Washington such exciting telling. Watching the speech from the White House, Kennedy was riveted to his black and white TV. It was the first time he had heard King speak, and was moved by his eloquence and intonation. “He is good,” he told an aide. “He is damn good.”

After the programme, he hosted the leaders for a meeting in the Oval Office. There was no hastily constructed fence outside the White House. The march had proved peaceful. There were only three arrests, all involving whites. JFK greeted King at the doorstep with a relieved smile and a jaunty “I have a dream”.

The speech was the turning point in the history of the movement. Kennedy and King moved closer together. I had a friend who was on King’s press team in those days, and he shared a joke that made the rounds after the eventful day.

King was given an open line to JFK and the story goes that one night at 3:00 am the phone rings by Kennedy’s bedside.

“Hello…Oh, hi Martin…it’s OK Martin, you can call me at any time…yes…but Martin…but Martin. Yes, but look Martin, you know it’s always been called the White House.”

Lance Neita is a public relations and communications specialist. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or lanceneita@hotmail.com.