Laurel, MD, April 9 or so 1962

. .
.
Never before or since has singing been as memorable as it was on the bus from Howard University in DC to Laurel, Maryland.

I had spent the previous week on a student exchange at Howard. This Saturday, my last day there, I was going with NAG, the Nonviolent Action Group, to a lunch counter demonstration. In those days in the South black folks couldn't walk into a restaurant and expect to be served. I knew that from the newspaper and TV reports about the civil rights struggle, and I had heard it from a black kid in my high school public speaking class who found out for himself while traveling with his family. Along with school integration and the freedom rides to integrate busses, lunch counter sit-ins were one of the fronts of the civil rights movement.

OK. The singing. I've told myself for the last thirty years that at no other time have I been part of singing like that, but I didn't realize I wouldn't be able to write about it without tears in my eyes.

Don't try this at home. Don't try this with a choir on a stage. To know what these songs sound like, you need a bus full of college kids who are going to put themselves on the line for truth, justice, and their vision of what the American Way has to be. You can't get the intensity by talking about it, seeing a film of it, or any way but being there.

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, some day.
Deep in my heart,
I do believe,
We shall overcome, some day.

Oh, freedom
Oh, freedom
Oh, freedom, over me,
And before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave,
And go home to my Lord and be free.

We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved.
Just like a tree that's planted by the waters,
We shall not be moved.

If you miss me at the back of the bus,
And you can't find me nowhere,
Come on up to the front of the bus.
I'll be riding up there.

Keep your eyes on the prize,
Hold on, hold on.

There are more that I wish I remembered as well. There are books and records, but only memory can record their spirit.

Will you forgive me for starting another page? I can't have those words on my screen without staring at them over and over. Those songs are sacred to the memory of Schwerner, Goodman, Cheney; Medgar Evers; Viola Liuzzo; Martin Luther King; and many others.