So What!?

Sixty-three years ago today, I looked in the mirror and did not recognize myself.

That's how deeply, indelibly, and permanently my trip to the March on Washington etched itself into me.

In 1963, I was numerically and psychologically a kid. I had boarded that bus with my hair in braids, wearing a brand-new pink-and-white gingham sundress made especially for the occasion. By nightfall, back on that bus, I knew I would never wear that pink-and-white gingham dress again.

All these years later, you might read this and shrug, "So What!?" And you'd be right—except for the fact that three generations later, a new wave of racism is acting to overturn voting rights, ban books, silence dissent, erase truths, and stunt our children’s intellectual growth.

The demons haven't disappeared; they’ve just changed dates.

What happened to change me on that terrifying, triumphant trip?  What from then could be of use to you and your children now?  Read my account below.