March on Washington; Revisiting the March on Washington; Interview with George Geesey

I don't think any of us the morning that we went out and prepared to do this broadcast realized what was about to take place and the enormity of it. None of us sort of realized how this was going to play in future years. I think it took a little bit of history for that to surface. I'm George dizzy and I was the manager of WFMU the American University FM station in 1963 when this march on Washington took place. Besides being the manager I was also the one that did a lot of the building of the studio and was responsible for a lot of the wiring. And so when it came time to pull together remotes from several places in Washington that was a sort of a natural thing to do. The phone company because of all the inaugurations and other important events in Washington already had what they called pedestals at critical locations around the Washington area including the Constitution Avenue the Capitol grounds the Lincoln

Memorial and other places. And so it was easy for us to sign up for a circuit and a telephone for coordination and placed some of the other announcers from the other contributing stations of the E.R. and at critical locations so they could cover the events and report on what the parade looked like and what was happening on the stage itself at the Lincoln Memorial. I think the idea of the program came from Dan Quayle who was the project manager for the E.R. and out of New York City. And we were the natural host because it was happening in Washington but we certainly didn't have the staff to do this by ourselves. And so he was able to arrange with the other stations to send the necessary people to Washington to man these different locations and and contribute to the coverage. We had no way of interconnecting all these cities Boston New York Philadelphia Washington Amherst

and Albany except by renting phone lines from the phone company and they were willing to equalize and improve as best they could. The circuits that otherwise would have been used for a phone conversation they sample what cables are available and then try to pick the best ones with the lowest noise the lowest hum. And of course there is a limit to how much level that we can all put into that system so that we didn't disturb the other users who perhaps are in the same bundle of cables and so we sat down with the phone company and ordered a circuit from WGBH in Boston to WRVA our and New York City. And then from there we got another circuit that went down to Philadelphia and from Philadelphia it came to WMUR in Washington. And then there were circuits that left WMU and looped back to Philadelphia and then back to

New York and eventually back to WGBH. Any one of us had the ability to interrupt the circuit and insert look really produce programming so that it flowed south and then back up around north. Now I was the southernmost station so I only could feed North but that allowed us to jump back and forth. In fact we had a magazine program called Kaleidoscope which was the same format as I would say all things considered is today some reading some music some news some interviews. And we for a while had to host one in WGBH in Boston and one in Philadelphia and they would get on the phone prior to the program and talk about now. I'll do the opening and then I'll do this piece where they will switch to Philadelphia and you do this. And just verbal lead by listening to each other. They got so good about throwing the cue to the next station that the engineers

could just throw the switch opening and closing as necessary to make things flow around the loop and I would of course get everything coming south and if I wanted to participate we could open the circuit on cue and send it back up and they could take it as it came back up the returning loop so to speak. And it allowed all the four stations to help carry the programming load which as I said is an advantage of networking in that you don't have to produce at all yourself. I'm not sure how it fell on me to be the anchor I think they wanted me near the control room. So in case anything happened to these circuits that were coming in and although we had student operators that I think were very qualified and probably could have handled any interruption or anything that might have gone wrong but I just think it fell on me. I had been hosting some of the programs and I just got elected to do it. Whether or not I got the short straw I'm not sure. I think part of how I covered it as an anchor person is a result

of my studies. I think I was very fortunate in Washington to have had good network quality teachers who had been there and done that. And at that time it was very clear that as a broadcaster you were fair and balanced. Another opinionated and you reported that as it was. That was our standard and I think I tried to match that. And again they taught us that you approach this not with any opinions but to be as reserved as you could be. Don't get excited. And to this day I often don't laugh or clap because I have always been taught you sit there and you don't show any emotion and you just leave it happen is it does. I like to look at the E.R. in as a predecessor of National Public Radio and in those days of the 60s the early 60s we didn't have the resources to do a lot of broadcasting. Our schedule initially was from like 4

o'clock to 11 o'clock in the evening that's all we could do. Much like the early television stations and we needed some mechanism for getting program material from the other educational stations. We thought that sharing now the basis of National Public Radio that if you pool the resources then some people can go off and do wonderful documentaries and others can do wonderful music interviews and others can do jazz programs and music programs that no one station can do. But when you pool the resources it makes all of us sound good. And so we jumped at the chance to be able to share with New York Philadelphia Washington Amherst and Albany. We took programs that they were doing they were reading aloud I think was one of the programs that came from WGBH and instead of just reading for the Boston market it played just as well in Washington D.C. and we got lots of comments about that program and the Madison Wisconsin manager also

did a lot of book reading for their audience and and those would be sent by tape. Well you can handle that to a certain extent. Music was a little bit more of a problem but we did bicycle it was called around the network a tape I would play at then I would send it to the next station. They would play it and send it to the third station and so on. But all of that is a big mechanical problem of getting it back in the mail on time hoping it arrives at the next station by the day that they've scheduled to air. And then for music programs we just needed something better than than what we were doing with tape that became stretched and and torn and patched and being able to do something live was very important. I think the most important thing to me in this broadcast was the peace of mind that everybody seemed to have. I think all the pundits thought that trouble was going to break out and certainly this huge crowd was just going to overwhelm

Washington and the Washington Police Department and the street system and I thought how peaceful these people are. They're all well dressed. Lots of shirts and ties and hats and umbrellas and compared to other events that we've seen from Washington in subsequent years. This was just outstanding but that this was the first time we'd seen something that large. And when Martin Luther King started speaking I thought here's a man that really has something important to say today. And look at how attentive this audience is to what he is saying. And I think his we shall overcome. And I can't help in retrospect think how else could this all have changed if Martin Luther King's life had not been taken and won nine hundred sixty eight. I would describe the group or the event as sometimes it looked like a Sunday stroll in the park. Other times it was sort of a church service with the religious overtones of some of the

songs and the words that were being spoken. It certainly was something that people enjoyed. They weren't forced to go there they did it all on their own volition. You don't see that a lot of times with the demonstrations of these latter years in Washington. I think I could say that this broadcast that day and its coordination was very important and helped formulate for me the kind of operation that a National Public Radio Network could carry out in subsequent years when funding was found and I had drifted away from the radio station and did some work in television. And then when they called me to say we're about to form an educational Public Radio and would you like to come and be a part of that and I didn't have to think very long before saying yes. And so I could draw on my experiences of the

E.R. and and the little network we had with one of the other public stations in the Washington area and that helped guide NPR into its network capabilities.