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March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
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The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony at the Lincoln Memorial during the march. Approximately 250,000 people took part in the march; it is estimated that 200,000 were African American and 50,000 were white.
The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations. Following the march, the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the National Voting Rights Act (1965) were passed.
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This march was initiated by A. Philip Randolph (international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, president of the Negro American Labor Council, and vice president of the AFL-CIO), who had planned a similar march in 1941. The threat of the earlier march had convinced President Roosevelt to establish the Committee on Fair Employment Practice and bar discriminatory hiring in the defense industry.
The 1963 march was organized by Randolph, James Farmer (president of the Congress of Racial Equality), John Lewis (president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), King (president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Roy Wilkins (president of the NAACP), and Whitney Young (president of the National Urban League). Bayard Rustin, a civil rights veteran and organizer of the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, the first of the Freedom Rides to test the Supreme Court ruling that banned racial discrimination in interstate travel, administered the details of the march.
The march was not universally supported among African-Americans. Some civil rights activists were concerned that it might turn violent, which could undermine pending legislation and damage the international image of the movement. The march was condemned by Malcolm X, spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, who termed it the "farce on Washington".
March organizers themselves disagreed over the purpose of the march. The NAACP and Urban League saw it as a gesture of support for a civil rights bill that had been introduced by the Kennedy Administration. Randolph, King, and the SCLC saw it as a way of raising both civil rights and economic issues to national attention beyond the Kennedy bill. SNCC and CORE saw it as a way of challenging and condemning the Kennedy administration's inaction and lack of support for civil rights for African-Americans.[1]
National media attention greatly contributed to the march's national exposure and probable impact. In his section "The March on Washington and Television News," William Thomas notes: "Over five hundred cameramen, technicians, and correspondents from the major networks were set to cover the event. More cameras would be set up than had filmed the last Presidential inauguration. One camera was positioned high in the Washington Monument, to give dramatic vistas of the marchers". By carrying the organizers' speeches and offering their own commentary, television stations literally framed the way their local audiences saw and understood the event. [1]
On August 28, more than 2,000 buses, 21 special trains, 10 chartered airliners, and uncounted autos converged on Washington. The regularly scheduled planes, trains, and buses were also filled to capacity. Crowd estimates ranged from 200,000 to 350,000.[1]
To the surprise of the march's leaders, who were meeting with members of Congress, the assembled group begin to march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial without them when the march failed to start on time.
Although one of the officially stated purposes of the march was to support the civil rights bill introduced by the Kennedy Administration, several of the speakers criticized the proposed law as insufficient. John Lewis said that without "meaningful legislation," Blacks would "march through the South." (His original speech, edited at the insistence of older leaders, had gone on: "through the heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We shall pursue our own scorched earth policy and burn Jim Crow to the ground nonviolently.") Floyd McKissick read James Farmer's speech because Farmer had been arrested during a protest in Louisiana; Farmer had written that the protests would not stop "until the dogs stop biting us in the South and rats stop biting us in the North."
The march is widely credited as a major factor leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- ^ a b March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom. Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.
- A "Dream" Remembered, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
- Manning Marable and Leith Mullings, Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle, London: Phaidon, 2002.
- Kate Tuttle, "March on Washington, 1963", Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, New York: Perseus, 1999.
- Juan Williams, Eyes on The Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, New York: Viking, 1987.
- March on Washington ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans