A LOOK BACK
Panel Recalls March on Washington By Marty Dobrow
FOR BARRY BROOKS, donning the mortar board before his graduation on June 14, 1964, was, in a sense, old hat. After all, Brooks had heard
the commencement speaker try his hand at oratory just nine and a half months earlier. On August 28, 1963, Brooks had walked with his girlfriend, Judy, and his parents to the Lincoln Memorial. There they joined more than 200,000 others to hear Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. “You could feel the
electricity, [the] positive energy,” Brooks recalled in a return to his alma mater on March 31 of this year. “People had come to support something they believed in. I don’t think negativity could have survived in that atmosphere.” Brooks’ account of the March on Washington was shared before a
Bill Parsonage, from left, Dan Smith, Marty Dobrow, and Barry Brooks pose following the panel discussion on the campus in March.
people of America to try to do things better for everyone else.” Smith went on to consid-
erable involvement in civil rights and social justice. Among other things, he directed an anti-poverty program in Alabama and developed the Area Health Education Center, which is still thriving. “I would say the March inspired me to become more concerned and more active,” he said. Parsonage also found the
experience to be transforma- tive. Freshly arrived at Springfield, Parsonage traveled to the March by train and was overwhelmed by the sense of hope and commitment he found on
large and rapt audience at the Campus Union. The room was filled with students, faculty, and community members, including Judy Brooks, that long-ago girlfriend who has been Barry’s wife for many, many years. They were there as part of the “Legacy of Inclusion,” a semester-long series of events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of King’s commencement speech at Springfield College. This event was a panel discussion about the March, one of the most important days in American history, as seen through the eyewitness accounts of three members of the College community. Brooks was joined by Daniel R. Smith Sr. ’60 and Robert Parsonage, former Springfield College Chaplain, who served in that role from 1963-1973. Smith came with an ancestral connection to American racial relations
that almost no one living today can claim. Smith’s father, Abram, was born into slavery in Virginia in 1862. Nearly a century later, in the fall of 1956, Dan Smith enrolled at Springfield College. His college days coincided with some of the significant moments of the civil rights movement, including the final months of the Montgomery bus boycott. He was hesitant, he admits, to attend the March on Washington, fearing—as many did—that it could become a dangerous atmosphere. Instead, it proved a beacon of peaceful protest and a time that spurred action. “It sort of woke America up,” Smith said. “It galvanized the good
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the National Mall. He credits the experience for “a developing determi- nation that the cause of racial and social justice was to be the commitment of my life—and I’ve tried to live that commitment to this day.” Parsonage helped to show Dr. King around campus when he arrived
“We still have an awful lot of work to do, and a far piece yet to go.”
for the commencement the next June. He became heavily involved with King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. During breaks from school, he often led groups of students to the south to work for civil rights. Later in his career, Parsonage became the president of Northland College in Wisconsin, a school famed for its environ- mental-based curriculum. Now living in Minnesota, he has helped to develop an
apartment complex and mentoring program for homeless youth. For his part, Brooks has certainly carried the torch. His whole career
has involved working with young people in education. For 30 years, he served the Amherst Public Schools as a beloved guidance counselor, a picture of Dr. King on his wall. These days he works in a mentoring program for young men of color at Holyoke Community College. He and Judy have attended both of the inaugurations of President Obama. While pleased with some of society’s progress in this area, all
panelists stressed the need to not rest on laurels, and to understand that the journey toward justice is far from complete. “We still have an awful lot of work to do,” said Brooks, “and a far piece yet to go.”1
TRIANGLE 1 Vol . 85, No.2
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