A defining moment: standing up for others' rights

My friend Dottie and I got separated from our group soon after the march began. We pledged togetherness. We needed it as we marched through white neighborhoods where we were greeted with sneers and angry shouts and comments. Reaching the black neighborhoods, we were applauded, cheered, and given water. Exhausted and sweltering, our destination, the Jackson Courthouse, seemed nowhere in sight. We sank to a curb in a shady spot, unable to go farther. A black man approached us saying that he would get his car and drive us to the rally. We collapsed into his air-conditioned back seat.

(We were told later that the march had been 17 miles, much longer than originally planned. We had been directed through black communities, recruiting blacks to increase the number of marchers.)

National Guardsmen and Mississippi Highway Patrolmen surrounded the capitol, rifles at their sides. Across the street were angry whites, acting out, jeering, and throwing their fists in the air. It felt as if they were directed at me. We, the marchers and the civil rights leaders, were caught in the middle. The paper reported that altogether the crowd numbered 15,000.

Two black men approached Dottie and me. They would stick by us, one said. "If there's a riot, you will be prime targets." We were dirty, disheveled, sunburned, and wore huge yellow Meredith March pins on our sun hats. But stick by us they did.

The list of speakers at the rally that day reads like a page from an American history book: Floyd McKissick of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), James Meredith (recovered from his wounds), Dr. King and Stokely Carmichael of the SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). This was the moment Mr. Carmichael first grabbed the attention of the American mainstream with his message of Black Power – a direct affront to King's emphasis on black and white cooperation.

After the rally, we walked past angry state police and taunting whites and did not stop until we arrived at the black neighborhood to find relief at Stevens Restaurant. The waitress served us iced water and bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. It was the best meal I had ever tasted.

On the long bus ride home I had time to reflect and begin analyzing the results of the weekend: My white brothers and sisters had been my enemy, as I had been theirs. I had actually been afraid, as never before. And I had felt hated as never before. My black brothers and sisters had been my protectors; generous, concerned, and loving. When I had entered the black neighborhoods, I could breathe a sigh of relief. I was safe. How strange this seems, 40 years later, to think of a time when blacks and whites marching together was a risky thing.

Home with my family, I nursed swollen legs for days, but my heart and my inner being never returned from Jackson. I was forever changed. The US Department of Justice later estimated that 2,500 to 3,000 black Mississippians were registered to vote during the James Meredith March. Reward enough.

Two months after the march, I began my 20-year teaching career in a segregated black school in a nearby Chicago suburb. I learned a lot, and I continue to stand up.

• Janie Dick is a retired schoolteacher and freelance writer.

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