Like a Mighty Stream: the March on Washington August 28, 1963.

by Patrik Henry Bass Running Press, October 2002 $18.95, ISBN 0-762-41292-5

If the goal of Essence Books Editor Patrik Henry Bass is to breathe life into his recounting of the 1963 March on Washington, one of the most significant events of the Civil Rights Movement, he definitely achieves his mission by using previously unavailable interviews, reportage, photos and behind-the-scenes commentary in his new book, Like a Mighty Stream: The March on Washington August 28, 1963. It is surprising how many Generation Xers have no idea of the importance of this protest for jobs and freedom at a time when the campaign for equal rights had reached a violent stage in the effort to register black voters in the South. Bass tries to put the occasion into perspective without dwelling on the number of speeches given, the number of celebrities in attendance and the number of arrests made.

Instead, Bass focuses on the average men and women, all 250,000 of them, who made the journey to the nation's capital on freedom buses and trains, determined to have their voices heard by white politicians and legislators who were balking at the passage of effective civil rights legislation. Despite the objections of President John F. Kennedy, the march, organized by Bayard Rustin, served to put white America on notice that blacks were not willing to wait another century to have their rights given to them.

Wisely, he traces the genesis of the march to an earlier 1941 brainstorm by A. Phillip Randolph, the head of the once mighty Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt finally bent under pressure to declare all bias in the defense industry unlawful (although desegregation of the military didn't take place until several years later). It was a necessary political move done as the country faced the awesome task of taking on the Axis powers. When Bass moves through the decades of resistance and struggle for civil rights, his writing stays lean, almost unsentimental, as if he deliberately wants to stick to the facts and render the story of the long crusade towards freedom without excessive hype. That approach works gloriously, especially when he presents a few select witnesses to the legendary event to describe in tightly edited detail how the march revitalized them and their commitment to the movement.

Indeed, Dr. King's majestic "I Have A Dream" speech is mentioned and some key players, Randolph, Rustin and Roy Wilkins, are briefly profiled. But the true strength of this slender, timely volume comes in its remembrance of a monumental day that bolstered the spirits of a people at a time in American history when it seemed all the odds were against them. Bass never lets us forget why this special march meant so much then and now. Don't wait for Black History Month. This is an exceptional, heartfelt tribute that should be featured in every local library and discussed openly in every family's living room.