Rally
organizer Glenn Beck, who speaks to a faithful audience nightly on conservative
Fox News television and daily on talk radio, insists it's just a coincidence
that his "Restoring Honor" rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
is overlapping with the 47th anniversary of King's speech.
Two
months before nationwide Congressional elections, which could cost President
Barack Obama's Democrats their majority in the House of Representatives and
perhaps the Senate as well, Beck's rally becomes only the latest symptom of
rampant political partisanship that is splitting the country and drowning out
voices of moderation.
Beck is
known for his extreme views and statements. He has described Obama, the first
black US president, as a racist.
Beck,
pacing back and forth on the marble steps, said he was humbled by the size of
the crowd, which stretched along the Washington Mall's long reflecting pool
nearly all the way to the Washington Monument.
"Something
beyond imagination is happening," he said.
"America
today begins to turn back to God." "For too long, this country has
wandered in darkness," said Beck, who was joined by Sarah Palin, a
conservative favorite and potential 2012 presidential candidate.
Neither
Beck nor Palin made overtly political comments.
Palin,
greeted by chants of "USA, USA, USA" from many in the crowd, told the
gathering, "It is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots.
You who are motivated and engaged ... and knowing never to retreat." Palin
likened the rally participants to the civil rights activists who came to the
National Mall to hear King's historic speech, which came at a crucial moment in
the civil rights struggle. She said the same spirit that helped civil rights
activists overcome oppression, discrimination and violence would help this
group as well.
"We
are worried about what we face. Sometimes, our challenges seem
insurmountable," Palin said. "Look around you. You're not
alone." The crowd — organizers had a permit for 300,000 — was vast, with
people standing shoulder to shoulder across large expanses of the Mall. The
National Park Service stopped doing crowd counts in 1997 after the agency was
accused of underestimating numbers for the 1995 Million Man March.
Civil
rights leaders protested the event and scheduled a 3-mile (5-kilometer) plus
march from a high school to the site of a planned King memorial near the Tidal
Basin and not far from Beck's gathering.
Eleanor
Holmes Norton, Washington's delegate to Congress, said she remembers being at
King's march on Washington, which she said prompted change and ended
segregation in public places. "Glenn Beck's march will change nothing.
But you
can't blame Glenn Beck for his March-on-Washington envy," she said.
Beck has
said he did not intend to choose the King anniversary for his rally but had
since decided it was "divine providence." Beck and other organizers
say the aim is to pay tribute to America's military personnel and others
"who embody our nation's founding principles of integrity, truth and
honor." In a taped presentation mixed in with his live remarks, Beck
invoked King's message and said "the fight for freedom was not easy."
He repeatedly injected religion into the event and urged rally participants to
rely on faith to help the US recover from an economic recession that has given
the country stubbornly high unemployment.
"Faith
is in short supply," Beck said. "To restore America, we must restore
ourselves." The Rev. Al Sharpton called the demonstration an
anti-government rally advocating states' rights. And Sharpton said that goes
against the message in King's speech, in which the civil rights leader appealed
to the federal government to ensure equality.
"The
structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what they're
calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and
it's something that Dr. King and others fought against," Sharpton said
Saturday on C-SPAN.
"It
is ironic to me that they come on the day of a speech where Dr. King appealed
for a strong government to protect civil rights and they're going to the site
of Abraham Lincoln who saved the union against the state rebellion," he
said.
Beck has
given voice to those angry and frustrated with Obama and other Democrats this
election year, especially members of the tea party movement — a loose knit
coalition of conservative and libertarian activists who oppose taxes and what
they perceive as government intrusion in their lives.
