Rachelle Horowitz
Rachelle Horowitz helped organize transportation for the march, even though she didn’t know how to drive.
Rachelle Horowitz took a break from her job at the Worker’s Defense League in 1963 to be in charge of March on Washington transportation — despite the fact she couldn’t even drive.
“And I was totally horrified and frightened about this notion,” she said. “And I said something that also in retrospect seems fairly silly. ‘How can I be the transportation director? I can’t drive,’ which I couldn’t. I was a New Yorker. And also I had lost my bus on every previous march.”
But with the encouragement of her mentor and future lifelong colleague, march organizer Bayard Rustin, Horowitz proceeded to organize all the buses, trains and planes for the more than 200,000 people who attended the march that day.
In a time long before e-mail and Facebook, this was no easy task. Horowitz used a system of 5×3 index cards and massive lists attached to the office walls to keep track of all the various travel options.
After her months of tedious work came to fruition with a well-attended and successful march, Horowitz reveled in the moment at the end of the day.
“All of us who had worked on the march,” continued Horowitz, “were just incredibly happy and pleased with what had happened. And we all linked hands and sang ‘We Shall Overcome.’ “
Horowitz went on to be Rustin’s assistant and eventually served as the political director for the American Federation of Teachers.
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