Washington rally: Opposite crowds invoke King

Beck said he had not known the significance of the date when he scheduled the rally. But speakers at his event were not shy about drawing parallels between King’s 1963 message and the conviction of tea party members and others who say the nation has lost its way and must return to its faith in God and its constitutional principles.

Among them was King’s niece, Alveda King. Standing where her uncle had, she echoed Beck’s central message of religious renewal, calling for prayer “in the public squares of America and in our schools.” Referencing her “Uncle Martin,” she pleaded for national unity and repeatedly declared, “I have a dream.”

“I have a dream that America will pray and God will forgive us our sins and revive us our land,” King said. “On that day, we will all be able to lift every voice and sing of the love and honor that God desires of all his children.”

Another speaker, 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, also cited King.

“Look around you. You’re not alone. You are Americans!,” Palin said. “You have the same steel spine and the moral courage of Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King. It is in you. It will sustain you as it sustained them.”

A few miles away at a Washington high school, the Rev. Al Sharpton hosted a gathering that took sharp exception to Beck’s event, and urged participants to “Reclaim the Dream.”

Among those in attendance was Martin Luther King Jr.’s son, Martin Luther King III. After a march to the site near the Lincoln Memorial where a monument to his slain father is being erected, he said the nation must “create a climate so that everybody can do well, not just some.”

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s Democratic delegate to Congress, called Beck’s rally a pale imitation of the gathering where King’s father spoke.

“The March on Washington changed America,” Norton said. “Our country reached to overcome the low points of our racial history. Glenn Beck’s march will change nothing. ... Too bad he doesn’t have a message worthy of the place.”

But there was strong support for that message among the metro Atlantans who had traveled 13 hours by bus to attend Beck’s rally. It was mainly religious in tone, in keeping with his pledge that the rally would not be used to promote political candidates.

He exhorted the crowd to “recognize your place to the creator. Realize that he is our king. He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us.” He asked his audience to pray more. “I ask, not only if you would pray on your knees, but pray on your knees but with your door open for your children to see,” he said.

Catherine McDonald of Buckhead, head of the Atlanta chapter of the 9.12 Project, a group formed by Beck to promote conservative values, said Beck was providing a forum for people who believe the nation has lost its sense of honor and focus on God.

“These are people who believe this country was founded on good principles and God,” said McDonald, also a member of the Georgia chapter of Americans for Prosperity, which organized a bus trip to the rally.

Joyce Williams of Woodstock said the rally showed the movement reaching a “new level.” She dismissed the idea that Beck and the participants wanted to steal the glory of the date.

“We are not about hate,” she said. “We are not about stealing an iconic figure from any group. We are not putting down any group.”

For Debbie Quillin of Acworth, the rally marked a higher level of commitment to the movement.

“I came because like a lot of Americans, this is not the country they wanted it to be,” said Quillin, who wore a shirt that said, “God Bless America.”

She said she had been preoccupied for the past 20 years with being a mother, but that a feeling of “some uncertainty, a reason for concern” had grown into a desire to make a statement.

“This is people coming together to live a better life,” she said. “I think Martin Luther King would look at this and be moved.”

Some of those who had journeyed to attend Sharpton’s rally did not share Quillin’s vision of unity. Among the speakers was Robert Franklin, president of Morehouse College in Atlanta — Martin Luther King Jr.’s alma mater — who took a poke at Beck.

“I am delighted to know that Mr. Glenn Beck and his colleagues have discovered the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech,” Franklin said as hundreds cheered. “This is good news. This is something we can all celebrate while standing on common ground.

“But we need to remind him that he needs to come to Morehouse to learn what Martin Luther King learned there,” Franklin said.

Claude Welchel, 75, of Gwinnett County, who experienced segregation, said he felt the Beck event was part of a growing division in the country.

“It means so much to me that things have come as far as they have,” Welchel said “But things are still not 100 percent like they should be ... because of my skin color.

“This country will never get right until the two parties work together and quit fighting,” he added.

Mary Pat Hector of Stone Mountain, the 12-year-old founder of a group called Youth in Action, said she and others raised about $22,000 for three buses and hotel rooms for about 150 group members who came from all across Georgia.

“The reason we’re here is to reclaim the dream ... but Dr. King’s dream wasn’t just about African-American rights, it was about peace,” she said.

Separate from Hector’s group, the Atlanta chamber of the National Action Network, Sharpton’s organization, charted two buses to bring about 100 members to Washington.

Chapter president Leisa Stafford said she didn’t object to Beck’s rally. But if Beck really wanted to promote unity, he would have worked with groups like hers to include them in his event, she said.

“We have different ideologies,” Stafford, 37, said. “For them, it’s about separation, whereas for us, we’re trying to galvanize people across the board.”

There were no official estimates of attendance at either rally. The National Park Service, which oversees the National Mall, was barred from releasing such figures after a dispute over the size of the 1995 Million Man March.

Beck had said he expected 100,000 to attend his rally, while organizers requested a permit allowing 300,000.

E-mails: cschneider@ajc.com; bkeefe@ajc.com. The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Associated Press contributed to this article.