Remembering the 1993 March on Washington

With a vague sense of virtue, I decided not to go to the Millennium March on Washington for all the sensible reasons…commitments at work, not enough vacation time, not enough money. But as the day of the march draws closer, less than twelve hours away as I type this, I find myself wishing I’d thrown common sense to the wind, like I did seven years ago.

Less than a month before the 1993 March on Washington, I suddenly decided I was going. No matter what. I recruited two of my friends, Kim and Amy, and we quickly made plans.

Although we started late in the game, our negotiations made a Middle East peace conference look impromptu. We had to rent a van (none of us had a car we trusted to get across the town, much less across the country). We had to decide who would take what driving shifts, how fast the driver would be allowed to go, and whether or not the passengers should have to chip in for speeding tickets. We had to compromise on the music (the Broadway tunes I enjoyed were voted down). We had to plan the timing and frequency of pit stops. And we had to find a place to stay, since all the hotels in Washington were booked solid. The last point almost defeated us, but Kim, who has an amazing talent for travel planning, rose to the occasion and found us the only vacant room within a hundred miles of Washington D.C.

The puns Kim and I loved were banned after the first two hours on the road. In fact, after listening to us do a ten minute riff on the word cat—“What a catastrophe!” “Cataclysmic, indeed!”—Amy threatened to stop the van and sell both of us as sex slaves to the religious right. I’m still not sure she was joking.

By the time we reached Washington we were starting to sound like little kids. “How much further?” “She ate the last veggie-burger!” “Well, you ate the last candy bar.” “If you two don’t sit down back there….!”

But a night in our motel room refreshed us, and the next morning we dressed in full pride regalia and took off to the march.

Later, some people would claim two million of us marched that day. Others would say it was more like one million. I think officials finally (mis)-numbered us at about 300,000. But whatever the count, I’d never seen so many gay and lesbian people together in one place. I spent a lot of time just staring and saying, “Wow.”

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