Dear Friends,
The first time I met Dorie Ladner was at the March On! Festival in 2017 in the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C. She was part of a panel of movement stalwarts commemorating their leader and comrade, the late Fannie Lou Hamer.
On either side of Dorie onstage were Rev. Ed King and Dr. Leslie McLemore, original members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. They were all featured in a short film about Mrs. Hamer, This Little Light of Mine, by Robin Hamilton, that we were screening that evening.
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton made opening remarks, recalling her first assignment upon arriving in Mississippi, fresh out of law school, was to get Mrs. Hamer out of jail.
Julian Bond was in the audience. I remember our founder Robert Raben telling him he was top of our list of Civil Rights heroes we would highlight at the next year’s festival. A few weeks later, Julian was gone.
Joining the NAACP and SNCC as a teenager, Dorie was a constant presence in marches, rallies, grassroots organizing and voter registration campaigns. She and her younger sister, Dr. Joyce Ladner, were the Festival’s speakers for many events focused on that tumultuous period.
In 2019, we held a provocative panel contemplating the fate of Carolyn Bryant, the wife of one of the murderers of Emmett Till. It was Bryant’s claim that Till assaulted her that led to the young boy’s torture and death, a claim she later admitted was false.
Joyce Ladner was in the audience that night and spilled a little family tea.
In the summer of 1963, Dorie and Joyce traveled to New York City to volunteer for the March on! Washington. They crashed on the couch of Rachelle Horowitz, a CORE organizer who lived in the same co-op building as Bayard Rustin where the first planning meetings were held.
Horowitz’s apartment – a movement crash pad – served as rehearsal space for a young John Lewis to hone his speech. Bob Dylan was also there, ostensibly practicing his performance for the March. But in reality, he was there to serenade Dorie.
Joyce recalled returning to the apartment after a long day of organizing to find Dylan sitting on the couch, singing to Dorie. The private concert went on into the night, while Joyce fervently wished he would just leave so they could pull out the couch and go to sleep. Horowitz eventually threw him out.
It is said that “the woman in Jackson” in Dylan’s Outlaw Blues is Dorie Ladner. To be memorialized in the Dylan canon may indeed be an honor, although made less so in this instance by the “but” in the verse…
Suitors aside, scores of obituaries will chronicle the remarkable work of this tireless freedom fighter. Rightfully so. Let us also remember Dorie’s sister Joyce, who stood by her side all their lives. The incredible resource that is the SNCC Legacy Project has on their website a transcript of an interview Dorie did just last year about her work with the March on! Washington. There’ll be a memorial service for Dorie on April 13 at 11am at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, DC.
Dorie Ann Ladner, 1942 – 2024. Of gracious mien, brilliant reasoning, seasoned courage, and immovable commitment.
March On!
Isisara Bey
Artistic Director
March On! Festival
