HOW CARDINAL GREGORY AND CATHOLICS REFLECT ON MARCH ON WASHINGTON 60TH ANNIVERSARY & FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! (1660 hits)
For Immediate Release From Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, DC!
"“Ours is the task and privilege of advancing the goals that were so eloquently expressed on that day." -
Today marks 60 years since the #MarchonWashington - a deeply faith-inspired event. Our efforts continue as we proclaim Christ's love for all and work for justice for all. Cardinal Gregory @WashArchbishop.
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A full circle moment for young marcher
In the summer of 1963, Suzanne Chandler was 16 and had been looking for a part-time job in the nation’s capital, where she grew up as a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish. Then she heard that on Aug. 28, there would be a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom promoting job opportunities and equality for Black Americans, so she decided to join the rally.
Sixty years later, Chandler who is now 76, remembers what happened next.
“I caught the bus and went down there. When I got there, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were so many people, Black and White, everyone was getting along and greeting each other. When they were singing songs, people were holding hands,” she said.
Chandler, who was in the crowd far back from the Lincoln Memorial near the Reflecting Pool, hadn’t taken anything to drink, but she remembered how “anyone with soda and water shared it.”
And although she didn’t get any job leads that day, Chandler said, “When I left, I was so inspired.”
The graduate of Our Lady of Perpetual Help School was a student at Margaret Washington Vocational High School in Washington in 1963.
“Fast forward a year later, I was job hunting,” Chandler said. The 17-year-old happened to be at a bus stop right next to the U.S. Department of Justice and decided to go inside and apply for a job there. “I was hired that day… I could not believe it. Then I found out my appointment was with the Civil Rights Division. I was speechless!”
Chandler, who worked for many years in that division of the U.S. Department of Justice as a clerk and stenographer, said, “I couldn’t help but think when I got that job, everything came full circle. That was my first job, other than babysitting.”
In 1965, she married Richard Chandler. The next year, she became a longtime member of St. Thomas More Parish in Washington, D.C., where over the years she served as an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist, has been a member of its outreach committee, and continues to help out at the food pantry. She and her husband of 58 years have three children and five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Read the full article HERE!https://cathstan.org/news/local/60-years-later-local-catholics-reflect-on-march-on-washington-and-its-impact
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Cardinal Ooffers BackTto School Mass at Carroll and Dedicates New Engineering Lab
Cardinal Wilton Gregory visited Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 28 to celebrate an opening of the school year Mass, to bless the high school’s new engineering lab and to commission students who participate in peer ministry there.
The cardinal noted that his visit to the school was occurring on a day marked by two significant events: the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and the feast day of St. Augustine, the patron saint of Archbishop Carroll High School.
Speaking about the anniversary of the march, he said the 250,000 participants in that historic event “sought the direction of peace and justice.”
“Some progress has been made, but we still have a long way to go,” the cardinal lamented.
Referring to Dr. King’s statement “our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives,” Cardinal Gregory said, “we pray that what they marched for will one day be achieved – that we become that ‘beloved community’.”
Marking the feast day of St. Augustine, Cardinal Gregory noted the Augustinian order originally sponsored Archbishop Carroll High School, which opened in 1951 as an all-boys school. Carroll is now a coeducational high school sponsored by The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
The cardinal said St. Augustine “was absolutely brilliant, but also a bit of a rascal” whose mother, St. Monica, prayed for his conversion.
“He had St. Monica – just like you have your mothers and grandmothers – who could see the greatness within,” the cardinal told the students. “Today, we celebrate the greatness that is within you. And we pray you have people in your family who will just insist that you be all you can be.”
In blessing the new engineering lab and all who will use it, Cardinal Gregory prayed to our “all-knowing God” that the lab would “serve this community and help students prepare for their future.”
He reminded those gathered for the blessing that “all disciplines and sciences and teachings must have as a final purpose the truth,” and he prayed that “human wisdom of the truth of God be enriched here.”
Carroll’s new innovation engineering laboratory is named for Dr. Mark E. Dean, a pioneering African American inventor and computer engineer. Dr. Dean holds three of IBM’s nine original patents. A member of the National Academy of Engineers, he is the first African American to be named an IMB Fellow and he has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
The lab is a hybrid space that includes a classroom and an adjoining area for working on projects, including those involving drones and robotics.
