To Dream of a Beloved Community

Jennie Aleshire is a senior peace and global studies major at Earlham College.

A hard linoleum floor and a room full of 100 people lying side by side in the basement of a church greeted a group of 12 Earlham students in Fort Lee, New Jersey last October. After planning for weeks, we had finally arrived for the last two days of the March of the Americas, from Washington, DC to New York City. It was modeled after the Poor People's Movement of the '60s as a means to create sovereignty and unity among poor people in the US, Latin America, and Canada.

On the drive out to this march, I had begun to seriously question what I was doing. What good am I, a middle-class college student, to a campaign uniting the poor across the Americas? What is wrong with a world where I have an excess of food sitting beside me in the van while men, women, and children die of hunger?

As I rolled out my sleeping bag in the dark to settle in for the remainder of night, I began to wonder who else was in the room, what their stories were, and exactly why I was there. I listened to coughs and snores--sleeping little, contemplating how different my life would be if I slept in a shelter every night.

We were awakened early the next morning, and after a day of interactions, I realized that the unknown strangers I had slept next to the night before are part of an incredible community, united for a common cause. There was intensity to this community that brought me close to tears several times.

We marched from New Jersey to the United Nations building, through Harlem and little Puerto Rico, into Manhattan, singing songs from the civil rights movement, giving high-fives to the store managers who came out of the markets in Harlem to greet us, and exchanging smiles.

Over the course of two days, I met a Mayan woman who had paddled three days to get to the bus to get to the airport to march for 30 days. I met a man who had been homeless in Atlanta for much of his life, but had come to New York to find a new beginning. I spoke through an interpreter to a deaf woman named Barbara who had been battered at school for using her hands to speak, and now wanted to unite with others for the common cause of human rights.

Welfare mothers and students, activists and social workers, lawyers and homeless people, and people from Haiti, Latin America, Brazil, Canada, and the Netherlands united in solidarity, walking through the streets of New York City. We listened to translations of speeches in 11 different languages and clapped in sign language at the closing rally after Wyclef Jean had played "We Shall Overcome."

We didn't change any laws, we didn't protest the government, we didn't act with hate; we walked with the love of the community that we created and encountered along the way. The 300 marchers, along with the construction workers, shop owners, and homeless people we met on the street, created an ideal model of the beloved community that was Dr. Martin Luther King's dream.

I learned at this march that activism does not have to mean protesting power structures with hatred, but rather protesting injustice with love, fighting for human rights with community and determination. Cheri Honkala, the coordinator of the march told us, "Too long have we as a people been separated. We are beginning to get organized. We are not about the business of just talking about how miserable things are. I want to live in a world where we are no longer isolated from each other. Marching alongside of you all, we reclaim our human rights."

I went to this march as a middle-class college student, and I am returning from it the same. But I am realizing that we as college students sell ourselves way too short if we simply continue to gloomily discuss the structure and the capitalistic "powers that be." I am convinced by the community that we lived this weekend that things can change for the better. Regardless of race, class, history, or sexual orientation, forming such a community is the beginning of change.

One of the marchers, a migrant worker, ended the rally with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King: "Keep this movement going. Keep this movement rocking in spite of the difficulties, and yes, there will be more difficulties. If you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl. But by all means, keep moving."

We are challenged today to move, and move in a positive direction. When we realize that the "they" of power to which we constantly refer is ourselves and not an abstract source, we are given both the freedom and the challenge to do something about injustice.