Aug. 28 marks the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. For nearly the past 20 years, it’s also been the day that I made or received a phone call from one of the march’s prime architects, Dr. Clarence B. Jones.

We would celebrate the victory of the history-making DC event, talk about its costs and its benefits, and discuss the progress forward for Black Americans … and the gulf we’ve yet to cross as a society.

This year, the phone is silent; Clarence passed away in May at the age of 95. You may not have ever heard of the man, which is exactly how he preferred it. He worked in the shadows of the Civil Rights Movement, supporting the public-facing leaders of the struggle with strategic, legal and financial ideas that unquestioningly solidified its impact on the country.

Netflix's 'The Baddest Speechwriter of All' shows what I saw firsthand

Through Clarence, I learned firsthand just how carefully thought-out and clever the moves that Dr. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and related organizations made to influence public opinion. His story of copyrighting King’s “I Have A Dream” speech hours before it was delivered alone is a case study in the nexus of instinct, planning, legal knowledge and the power of celebrity. (It remains to this day the unique copyrighted political speech in American history positioned to earn royalties, amounting to millions of dollars over the six decades.)

I suggest you may not........

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