Marching is so old school, friend. What do you ever expect to get accomplished by marching?
“People have said exactly that: ‘What’s a march going to do?’” Betty Banks, senior executive producer of Club TNT tells Madison365. “A march brings awareness and it brings many different segments of the community together in a positive way.”
People said the same thing to Gaddi Ben Dan, also senior executive producer of Club TNT, back when he marched for civil rights in Chicago in the ’60s. A highlight of Dan’s young life was meeting and marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Chicago Freedom Movement, also known as the Chicago Open Housing Movement, in 1966. The movement included a large rally, marches, and demands to the City of Chicago for open housing, tenants’ rights, quality education, transportation and job access, community development and more.
“People way back then were saying, ‘Why are we marching?’ Even Malcolm X talkin’ about the March on Washington D.C. sayin’ ‘all they are doing is marching between the statues of Lincoln and Jefferson’ and nothing will happen,’” Dan tells Madison365. “But I’ve seen where marching has been a great thing for minorities. I’ve seen where it makes a big difference.”
Dan notes that the 1963 March on Washington increased employment, education and housing opportunities for minorities and that the 1963 Children’s March in Birmingham, Alabama resulted in President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the 1964 Civil Rights Bill.
“That 1963 march, the [1968] Poor People’s campaign, opening up housing, education and employment marches,” Dan says. “Let me just say that the squeaky wheel gets the most oil and marching has always been an effective way to stir things up but to also bring people together.”
On Saturday, Aug. 26, Club TNT and Neighborhood Connectors will host the “Walk Against Violence, Save The Children March” to show that they are a unified community as they call attention to the indiscriminate violence happening in Madison and to “let the children see we love them and will protect them because they are our future.”
Dan and Banks are the founders of Club TNT, an hour-long TV program on Saturdays to educate youth and help steer them towards positive life choices. Club TNT showcases the abilities of young people, using music, poetry and more, to “make responsible decisions today, without waiting for tomorrow.”
They are partnering with Sheray Wallace, a Meadowood-area community ambassador, activist, and organizer, who founded and developed Neighborhood Connectors to connect families in the Meadowood community and to make a difference in that community.
“The whole idea to host a march came when Sheray was concerned about what was happening in her neighborhood. There had been shootings and she had done some Stop the Violence workshops with kids and she said, ‘Ya know, Betty, I just feel like something needs to be done,’” Banks says. “I said, ‘Well, Gaddi did some work on this issue back in the day in Chicago and he might have some ideas.’ He and she started meeting and put together a plan for the march.”
The plan for the march is to start at Good Shepard Church, 5701 Raymond Rd., where people will eat breakfast at 8 a.m. and then people will gather at 10:30 a.m. to begin the march.
“[Assistant to the director of community relations in the chancellor’s office] Leotha Stanley will be playing music for us while we eat breakfast,” Dan says. “We’re going to march west down Raymond Road to Old Redeemer Church on McKenna [Blvd.]. They are going to block off all of the streets. We have the Madison Police Department and the Madison Fire Department on board.”
The organizers already have a huge number of sponsors on board for the march including the Urban League of Greater Madison, Madison area Urban Ministry (MUM), the Madison Community Foundation, State Farm Insurance, JH Findorff Company, Omega School, Umoja Magazine, Wegner and Associates CPA’S., WISC-TV Channel 3, Meadowood Library, Meadowood Foundation, City of Madison, Madison Fire and Police Departments, University of Wisconsin Marching Band, Today Not Tomorrow, Project Babies, Tales with BIG T, Access Community Health, Rick’s Olde Gold, the Black Chamber of Commerce, and more.
“The importance of this is showing a unified front,” Dan says. “This is for the kids. We’re letting our young kids know that we have their backs and we know that they are scared, but the adults have your back.”
Neighborhood Connectors and Club TNT, whose third partner is Jeanne Erickson, director of public relations, are looking forward to having WISC-TV as the main media sponsor for the event. “They are helping us to make signs. Fair Signs on Odana Rd. is producing the signs for us,” Dan says.
The University of Wisconsin marching band will be there along with Disney characters. Dan is hoping to get Bucky Badger in the mix before it’s all said and done. West side alder Barbara McKinney will be hosting her annual “West Fest” on the same day at Elver Park. “We’ve talked with her and she’s on board with our idea,” Dan says. “So we are looking forward to working with her.”
Banks and Dan’s weekly television show, Club TNT, educates and informs by providing opportunities for youth to build self-esteem and confidence to say no to drugs, gangs and other risky behaviors which include gun violence. Club TNT will be giving away gun locks at the event.
“We know that the number-one cause of suicide in children under 14 is from handguns,” Dan says. “Wisconsin has some of the most stringent handguns in the nation but kids are still killing themselves with guns. So we say, ‘Lock it up.’”
After all these years of community work and activism, is this the first march that Banks and Dan have ever helped plan?
“Not quite. We did this back in 1986,” Dan remembers. “We brought out the Navy. They were with us going down Park Street. Mayor Sensenbrenner marched on Parks Street with us – it was an anti-drug parade.”
Thirty-one years later, the “Walk Against Violence, Save The Children March” will be part 2.
“We really want to pass on to the younger generation what they need to do to carry on the struggle,” Banks says. “We have been working with the police department on this and it has been sort of an extension of the Peacemakers. We’re also showing the people that we need to connect and build relationships with the police department. That’s what we want to show.
“This affects everybody. The talk can’t be that it’s just in south Madison. The talk can’t be that it’s just on the west side. It can happen anywhere,” Banks adds. “It is about saving our children from the violence that is spreading throughout all of this country and really thinking about the children. We want them to grow up in safe communities so they can do all of the things that are necessary to keep our community safe.”
Banks adds that she’s hoping that people will not only come out from around the city for the march but to come out of their houses and join in along the way. Dan says that, like in the ’60s, marching and protest can be powerful.
“If people really started marching and protesting in Madison as a community, we could stop a lot of this stuff. We could really raise awareness and really get so many more people involved,” Dan says. “This is going to be a great day. We are still getting people, groups, organizations on board. People are still signing up as we speak. We’re going to have a great time. We’re expecting a big crowd.”
