Listening to the podcast episode of 12/11/24 with Rita Moreno, age 93, talking with Julia Louis-Dreyfus about her experience attending The March on Washington got me wondering. She told about being there to hear singer Mahalia Jackson interrupt Martin’s prepared speech (Moreno remembers Jackson tugging on King’s jacket, other reports recall her calling out. This difference in details could be memory-related or I also wonder if it happened more than once. Certainly Jackson and Martin were close friends). Anyway according to this Biography report, Mahalia called out, “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!”
L. to R. foreground: Actors Anthony Franciosa, Rita Moreno and Sammy Davis, Jr. at The March on Washington August 28, 1963 They were seated near the front.
“Friend and draft speechwriter Clarence B. Jones wrote in The Washington Post in 2011:
“The moment that Jackson had cried out, as if at a church service, Jones said it was clear that King acknowledged it. ‘I noticed that when she shouts to him that he looks over to her in real-time momentarily,’ Jones told The Wall Street Journal.
Later on, King addressed the impact of the moment. “When I got up to speak, I was already happy,” he wrote to Jackson on January 10, 1964. “I couldn’t help preaching. Millions of people all over this country have said it was my greatest hour. I do not know, but if it was, you, more than any single person helped to make it so.”
It touches my heart to see mutual respect, care and trust between two friends.
Also interesting about that day, especially in terms of those times, was this section of the program that I’d not heard about before which recognizes the women of the movement. (I also didn’t know so many others spoke.)
It says, “Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom ….. Mrs. Medgar Evers
Daisy Bates
Diane Nash Bevel
Mrs. Medgar Evers
Mrs. Herbert Lee
Rosa Parks
Gloria Richardson”
Moreno’s above podcast episode by the way, had more between-the-lines information than any other that I’ve listened to on that strong show (which interviews older (famous) women about life, work, society). There was more there even than I think host Louis-Dreyfus was aware of.
Moreno talks about the “marriage contract” between Moreno and her husband and how free she felt after he died… and comparing notes with other women of her age about this same type of experience. Her story about being raped at age 16 by her agent (which she talks about in her memoir) whom she then met with years later also says a lot about where things were and where they are (or aren’t) now. There’s Lots there between the lines, about our society and what it’s been like and is like (to be a woman) in it.
But back to Mahalia.
Stevie Chick writes in the Guardian, May 19, 2022, comparing the way King delivered that speech to the way that Jackson sang,
“’Her voice was magnificent, powerful, like thunder,’ says [British singer Sarah] Brown. “You could hear the rock’n’roll, spiritual blues singer within this very strongly faith-led person.” This delicious dichotomy went both ways: secular music profoundly influenced her singing, but the ecstasy of her belief in a higher power was intoxicating. “Often as outsiders appreciating gospel culture, we fail to recognise that this is a true, personal, spiritual relationship the singer is having with their God,” says White. “That’s what Mahalia is expressing in her performances. When I listen to her sing, I feel she’s not with us, the audience – she’s not addressing us, she’s addressing that relationship with God.”
At Jackson’s urging, King delivered the greatest speech of his career. “Listen back to it,” urges Hues. “His intonation was like he was singing.” Jackson had once patterned her singing on “the way the preacher would preach in a cry, in a moan”; now the nation’s most famous preacher was following her lead.”
Moreno also talks on the podcast about what she observed of King’s gifted “acting ability,” referencing his skills to deliver what was already an apparently deeply heartfelt message.
She also talks about how the actors feared they’d never work again in Hollywood (and other fears for physical safety) for participating in the March. But they felt it was the right thing to do and even an imperative.
“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”
