“Ringing Out” the Washington March and Dr. King’s “Dream”

From left to right: Deacon Nancy Hagge, Deacon Brenda Dansingburg, Pastor Don Harpster, Johanna Harpster, President Bob Kottkamp, Trustee Carl Hagge, Trustee Dick Dansingburg, and Trustee Andy Ohotnicky

On Wednesday, August 28, 2013, eight members of the United Church of Ludlow gathered around the church’s bell rope in preparation to “ring out freedom” in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, D. C. and the “I Have a Dream” speech delivered by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

​A call went out for bells of all kinds to be rung across the nation at 3:00 pm local time. At precisely 3:00, the eight members began ringing the bell and continued for five minutes, handing off the rope in rotation as they tired pulling on the historic 1200-pound bell. Church Secretary Sandra Russo also joined in the ringing.

---

All ringers, now of “a certain age,” were in early adulthood in 1963 and remember indelibly the national events of the Civil Rights Movement that played out both before and after the March on Washington. Each holds personal recollections and meanings concerning the Movement and the Washington March event.

There are deep historical connections related to the recent bell ringing. The bell was cast in 1839, 50 years after the ratification of the US Constitution, for the then new second building of the Ludlow Congregational Church located on High Street. It was cast by Major George Holbrook, At a young age Holbrook was apprenticed to Paul Revere, who recent researchers using social network analysis techniques have identified at the center of the revolutionary group in Boston. The bell rung throughout the Abraham Lincoln Administration, including the period in which the President fought to have Congress pass the 13th Amendment, the focus of the recent film “Lincoln”. That amendment ended slavery by legally severing the “peculiar institution” from the law of the land. However, it was failed implementation of the spirit and meaning of the 13th Amendment, in Dr. King’s words, the unfulfilled “promissory note,” that resulted in the Civil Rights Movement and his rise to the spokesperson for it. The ringers have experienced and celebrated “progress” toward universal application of Jefferson’s words in Declaration of Independence, spirit of the 13th Amendment, and Dr. King’s “Dream”, but all believe there is much work yet to do to bring these visions to fruition.