From the archive
Six buses to Washington
In August 1963 a church of four hundred people sent two hundred and eighty of them to the March on Washington. The minute book still has the list.
Deborah Waddell · Chair, Historical Committee
The decision was made on a Wednesday night in July, at the regular meeting of the official board. The minutes give it one line: 'Moved and carried that the church charter buses for the Washington demonstration, the cost to be met by free-will offering.'
The offering was taken the following Sunday. It raised enough for four buses. By the middle of August, the Stewardess Board had sold enough fried chicken dinners to pay for two more.
Leaving at four in the morning
The buses left the corner of Druid Hill and Lanvale at four o'clock on the morning of August 28. Every rider was handed a bag lunch, a bottle of water and a printed card with the church's phone number in case they were separated.
My mother packed sixty lunches the night before. She said if we were going to walk for freedom we were not going to walk hungry.
Two hundred and eighty names are written in the minute book in the clerk's careful hand. Eleven of those riders are still members of the church.
Every August we read the names aloud at the end of morning worship. It takes almost nine minutes. Nobody has ever suggested we shorten it.
