March On Washington
Martin Luther King, JR.
“I Have A Dream, Speech”
The March on Washington was an interracial march by 250,000 blacks and whites on August 28, 1963 in Washington D.C., protesting segregation and job discrimination against blacks in the nation. Also called March for freedom and Jobs. Martin Luther King JR’s “I Have a Dream” speech was the most famous part of that day. This was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation’s capital.
The march was initiated by A. Philip Randolph, the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, president of the Negro American Labor Council, and vice president of the AFL-CIO. Randolph 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 an important part of the rapidly expanding Civil Rights Movement. It also marked the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln. By 1963, the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, most of the goals of these earlier protests still had not been realized. High levels of black unemployment, work that offered most African Americans only minimal wages and poor job mobility, systematic disenfranchisement of many African Americans, and the persistence of racial segregation in the South prompted discussions about a large scale march for political and economic justice as early as 1962.
The march was organized by a coalition of organizations and their leaders including: Randolph who was chosen as the head of the march, James Farmer (president of the Congress of Racial Equality), John Lewis (president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Martin Luther King, Jr. (president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Roy Wilkins (president of the NAACP), Whitney Young (president of the National Urban League). They were also known as the “Big Six”. Randolph focused on jobs and the other groups focused on freedom.
The actual march itself was administered by deputy director 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. Rustin was a long-time associate of both Randolph and Martin Luther King, Jr.
President Kennedy originally discouraged the march, he feared it might discourage the legislature to vote against the civil rights law and perceive a threat. Once Kennedy seen that the march will go on, he supported it. 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 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) saw it as a way of raising both civil rights and economic issues to national attention beyond the Kennedy bill. Student Nonviolent coordination Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (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.
In March 1963 Randolph telegraphed King that the Negro American Labor Council (NALC) had begun planning a June March “for Negro job rights,” and asked for King’s immediate response. In May, at the Birmingham Campaign, King joined Randolph, James Farmer of CORE, and Charles MCDew of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in calling for such an action later that year, declaring, “Let the black laboring masses speak. “After notifying President Kennedy of their intent, the leaders of the major civil rights organizations set the march date for August 28th. The stated goals of the protest included “a comprehensive civil rights bill” that would do away with segregated public accommodations; “protected of the right to vote”; “desegregation of all public schools in 1963”; a massive federal works program
“to train and place unemployed workers”; and “a Federal Fair Employment Practices Act barring discrimination in all employment” (“Goals of Rights March”).
The day’s high point came when Martin Luther King JR took the podium toward the end of the event, and moved the Lincoln Memorial audience and live television viewers with what has come to be known as his “I Have a Dream” speech. King commented that “as television beamed the image of this extraordinary gathering across the border oceans, everyone who believed in man’s capacity to better himself had a moment of inspiration and confidence in the future of the human race, “ and characterized the march as an “appropriate climax” to the summer’s events.
After the march, Martin Luther King JR. and other civil rights leaders met with President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House, where they discussed the need for bipartisan support of civil rights legislation. Though they were passed after Kennedy’s death, the provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 reflect the demands of the march.
Works Cited
Civil Rights March on Washington. All about the March on Washington, August 28, 1963
Congress of Racial Equality. “Making Equality A Reality”. March on Washington. The World Hears of Dr. King’s “Dream”.
Lerone, Bennett JR. “The Day They Marched.” March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom, Washington, D.C., 1963 Civil rights demonstrations. Ebony. Aug2003, Vol. 58 issue 10, P150. 8p. PROQUEST. Harrisburg Area Community College Libraries, Harrisburg, PA. 9 Aug. 1999
http://web.ebscohost.comezproxy.hacc.edu/ehost/delivery?sid=38f963bc-8d8d
Garrow, David J. King The March The Man The Dream. American History; Aug2003, Vol. 38, p26, 10p. 7 “March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom, Washington, D.C., 1963 “ Civil rights demonstrations…Washington (D.C.) Proquest. Harrisburg area Community College Libraries, Harrisburg, PA.
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.hacc.edu/ehost/delivery?hid=10...
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