The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a large political rally in support of civil and economic rights for African-Americans that took place in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, 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.^[1]

The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations,^[2] under the theme "jobs, and freedom."^[1] Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 (police) to over 300,000 (leaders of the march). Observers estimated that 75–80% of the marchers were black and the rest were white and other minorities.

The march is widely credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the National Voting Rights Act (1965).

Contents 1 Background and Organization 2 The March 3 Speakers 3.1 Controversy over John Lewis' speech 4 Media coverage 5 Criticism 6 See also 7 Notes and references 8 External links

[edit] Background and Organization

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. Randolph said "I pledge my heart, and my mind, and my body, to the achievement of social peace through social justice." ^[3] The 1963 march was an important part of the rapidly expanding Civil Rights Movement. In the political sense, the march was organized by a coalition of organizations and their leaders including: Randolph, 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).

The mobilization and logistics of the actual march itself was administered by 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. Rustin was a long-time associate of both Randolph and Dr. King. With Randolph concentrating on building the march's political coalition, Rustin built and led the team of activists and organizers who publicized the march and recruited the marchers, coordinated the buses and trains, provided the marshals, and set up and administered all of the logistic details of a mass march in the nation's capital.

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.^[2]

[edit] The March

On August 28, more than 2,000 buses, 21 special trains, 10 chartered airliners, and uncounted cars converged on Washington. All regularly scheduled planes, trains, and buses were also filled to capacity.^[2]

The march began at the Washington Monument and ended at the Lincoln Memorial with a program of music and speakers. The march failed to start on time because its leaders were meeting with members of Congress. To the leaders' surprise, the assembled group began to march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial without them.

[edit] Speakers

Representatives from each of the sponsoring organizations addressed the crowd from the podium at the Lincoln Memorial. Speakers included all six civil-rights leaders of the so called, "Big Six"; Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious leaders; and labor leader Walter Reuther. The one female speaker was Josephine Baker.

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 the rats stop biting us in the North."^[4]

Gospel legend Mahalia Jackson sang "How I Got Over", musician Bob Dylan performed several songs, including "Only a Pawn in Their Game", about the culturally-fed racial hatred amongst Southern whites that led to the assassination of Medgar Evers; and "When the Ship Comes In", during which he was joined by fellow folk singer Joan Baez, who earlier had led the crowds in several verses of "We Shall Overcome" and "Oh Freedom". Peter, Paul and Mary sang "If I had a Hammer". Marian Anderson sang at the march as well.

King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech, which was carried live by TV stations.

[edit] Controversy over John Lewis' speech

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 of SNCC was the youngest speaker at the event.^[1] His speech–which a number of SNCC activists had helped write–took the Administration to task for how little it had done to protect southern blacks and civil rights workers under attack in the Deep South :^[5]

"We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of, for hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here–for they have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages–or no wages at all. ...

We come here today with a great sense of misgiving. It is true that we support the administration's Civil Rights Bill. We support it with great reservation, however. ... Unless title three is put in this bill, there's nothing to protect the young children and old women who must face police dogs and fire hoses in the South while they engage in peaceful demonstration. In its present form this bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, who must live in constant fear of a police state. ... As it stands now, the voting section of this bill will not help the thousands of people who want to vote. ... We must have legislation that will protect the Mississippi sharecroppers, who have been forced to leave their homes because they dared to exercise their right to register to vote.

We need a bill that will provide for the homeless and starving people of this nation. We need a bill that will ensure the equality of a maid who earns five dollars a week in the home of a family whose total income is 100,000 dollars a year. We must have a good FEPC bill.

My friends let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution. By and large, politicians who build their career on immoral compromise and allow themselves an open forum of political, economic and social exploitation dominate American politics. ... what political leader can stand up and say, "My party is a party of principles"? For the party of Kennedy is also the party of Eastland. The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham? Where is the political party that will protect the citizens of Albany, Georgia? ... We must say wake up America, wake up its now 2:00 in the afternoon! For we cannot stop, and we will not and cannot be patient."

Cut from his original speech^[6] at the insistence of more conservative and pro-Kennedy leaders were phrases such as:

In good conscience, we cannot support wholeheartedly the administration's civil rights bill, for it is too little and too late. ...

I want to know, which side is the federal government on?...

The revolution is a serious one. Mr. Kennedy is trying to take the revolution out of the streets and put it into the courts. Listen, Mr. Kennedy. Listen, Mr. Congressman. Listen, fellow citizens. The black masses are on the march for jobs and freedom, and we must say to the politicians that there won't be a "cooling-off" period.

...We will march through the South, 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...

Many activists from SNCC, CORE, and even SCLC were angry at what they considered censorship of his speech. A. Philip Randolph also spoke with an inspirational speech.

[edit] Media coverage

Media attention gave the march national exposure, carrying the organizers' speeches and offering their own commentary. 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".^[7]

[edit] Criticism

Black nationalist Malcolm X, in his Message to the Grass Roots speech, criticized the march, describing it as "a picnic" and "a circus". He said the civil rights leaders had diluted the original purpose of the march, which had been to show the strength and anger of black people, by allowing white people and organizations to help plan and participate in the march.^[8]

[edit] See also

• African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)
• List of protest marches on Washington, D.C.

[edit] Notes and references

• 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.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

• The March, 1963, from the National Archives YouTube Channel
• March on Washington – King Encyclopedia, Stanford University
• March on Washington August 28, 1963 ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans
• March on Washington, WDAS History
• Original Program for the March on Washington
• Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at the March
• Bob Dylan, accompanied by Joan Baez, performing When the Ship Comes in at the March – from YouTube
• YouTube clip of Bob Dylan performing Only a Pawn in Their Game at the March

Links to related articles v – d – e African-American Civil Rights Movement Topics and events (timeline) Albany Movement – Birmingham campaign – Black Power – Brown v. Board of Education – Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church – Chicago Open Housing Movement – Civil Rights Act of 1964 – Civil Rights Act of 1968 – Dexter Avenue Baptist Church – Emmett Till – Freedom Riders – Mississippi Freedom Summer – Greensboro sit-ins – Greyhound Bus Station (Montgomery, Alabama) – Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections – Little Rock Nine – March on Washington – Mississippi civil rights workers murders – Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party – Montgomery Bus Boycott – Nashville sit-ins – Poor People's Campaign – Selma Voting Rights Movement – 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing – Twenty-fourth Amendment – Voting Rights Act of 1965 Activists Ralph Abernathy – Victoria Gray Adams – Ella Baker – James Bevel – Claude Black – Unita Blackwell – Julian Bond – Stokely Carmichael – J.L. Chestnut – Shirley Chisholm – Dorothy Cotton – Claudette Colvin – Vernon Dahmer – Annie Devine – Medgar Evers – Chuck Fager – James Farmer – James Forman – Marie Foster – Prathia Hall – Fannie Lou Hamer – Dorothy Height – Lola Hendricks – Aaron Henry – Myles Horton – T. R. M. Howard – Jesse Jackson – Jimmie Lee Jackson – T.J. Jemison – Judge Frank Johnson – Matthew Jones – Clyde Kennard – A.D. King – Coretta Scott King – Martin Luther King, Jr. – Bernard Lafayette – James Lawson – Bernard Lee – John Lewis – Viola Liuzzo – Z. Alexander Looby – Joseph Lowery – Clara Luper – Malcolm X – Thurgood Marshall – James Meredith – Amzie Moore – Bob Moses – William Moyer – Diane Nash – E. D. Nixon – James Orange – James Peck – Rosa Parks – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. – Al Raby – A. Philip Randolph – Amelia Boynton Robinson – Bayard Rustin – Charles Sherrod – Fred Shuttlesworth – Modjeska Monteith Simkins – Kelly Miller Smith – Charles Kenzie Steele – C. T. Vivian – Wyatt Tee Walker – Roy Wilkins – Hosea Williams – Judge John Minor Wisdom – Andrew Young – Whitney Young Activist groups Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) – Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) – Highlander Folk School – Leadership Conference on Civil Rights – Montgomery Improvement Association – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) – NAACP Youth Council – National Council of Negro Women – National Urban League – Operation Breadbasket – Regional Council of Negro Leadership – Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – Women's Political Council Historians Taylor Branch – Clayborne Carson – Michael Eric Dyson – Chuck Fager – Adam Fairclough – David Garrow – David Halberstam – Diane McWhorter v – d – e Martin Luther King, Jr.   Speeches and sermons– Writings– Movements and protests Speeches "How Long, Not Long" – "I Have a Dream" – "I've Been to the Mountaintop" Writings Letter from Birmingham Jail – "What is Man?" Movements and protests Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955) – Nashville sit-ins (1960) – Albany Movement (1961) – Birmingham campaign (1963) – March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963) – Selma Voting Rights Movement (1965) – Chicago Freedom Movement (1965–67) – Memphis Sanitation Strike (1968) – Poor People's Campaign (1968)   People Family Martin Luther King, Sr. (father) – Alberta Williams King (mother) – Christine King Farris (sister) – Alfred Daniel Williams King (brother) – Coretta Scott King (wife) – Yolanda King (daughter) – Martin Luther King III (son) – Dexter Scott King (son) – Bernice King (daughter) – Alveda King (niece) Others Benjamin Mays (mentor) – Bayard Rustin (advisor) – Ralph Abernathy (colleague) – James Bevel (strategist and colleague)   Assassination James Earl Ray – William Francis Pepper – Loyd Jowers   Media Film and TV King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (documentary film) – "The First Store" (The Jeffersons episode) – King (TV miniseries) – "The Promised Land" (New York Undercover episode) – "Return of the King" (The Boondocks episode) Songs "Martin Luther King's Dream" (Strawbs) – "Happy Birthday" (Stevie Wonder) – "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (U2) – "MLK" (U2) – "King Holiday" (King Dream Chorus and Holiday Crew) – "Shed a Little Light" (James Taylor) – "Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)" (Patti Griffin)   Related topics Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – Lee-Jackson-King Day – National Historic Site – National Memorial – National Civil Rights Museum – Eponymous streets – Authorship issues – Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend

Related topics in the Connexions Subject Index

Alternatives  –  Left History  –  Libraries & Archives  –  Social Change  – 

This article is based on one or more articles in Wikipedia, with modifications and additional content contributed by Connexions editors. This article, and any information from Wikipedia, is covered by a Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).

We welcome your help in improving and expanding the content of Connexipedia articles, and in correcting errors. Connexipedia is not a wiki: please contact Connexions by email if you wish to contribute. We are also looking for contributors interested in writing articles on topics, persons, events and organizations related to social justice and the history of social change movements.

For more information contact Connexions

---