During the very first March on Washington, August 28, 1963, little Alicia Jones, a shy girl from Queens, was in the seventh grade.

Back then, she didn’t know that a quarter of a million people had gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to demand equal rights for African Americans.

“My family was not politically active, we weren’t involved in the civil rights movement in any way, shape, or form," said Jones, who now uses her married name, Alicia Parker. “Looking back at the whole experience – I feel I got left behind.”

But 57 summers later, Parker said not even a pandemic will keep her away from The National Mall on Friday.

“I think we’ve prepared ourselves the best we could," said Parker. "I went out and got special face masks that have special filters in them and we’re going to be practicing our social distancing.“

“I was one of the first people to jump on the bandwagon to say I’m going," Parker added. "I had to convince other people in my family to go - my husband is going with me, and my granddaughter.”

That granddaughter is Akasha Parker, 8, who will add her young voice to the demands for change. She has created homemade signs calling for peace and unity.

The theme of this year’s March is “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks," a reference to the case of a Black man, George Floyd, who died after a white Minneapolis police officer kneed him in the neck for more than eight minutes until he became unresponsive.

Parker is a retired NYPD lieutenant detective commander and says it’s time for police reform.

"I have been on the receiving end of systemic racism," she said. "And I think if you’re not on the receiving end – you’ll feel that there’s not a problem."

"We have to talk to each other," she added. "You can’t train racism out of someone, you have to talk to them as individuals to see if there is an opportunity to get them to change their thinking about the other. People think about us and them. It has to be we."

Like the original March on Washington, the Parker family hopes there will be a large turnout in spite of the pandemic and it will lead to lasting change.