Today is the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom! More than 200,000 people participated in the march in Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963, leading to President John F. Kennedy’s initiation of civil rights legislation in Congress (1) which President Lyndon Johnson eventually signed as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (2).
Organizations which sponsored or participated in the original event included: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the National Urban League; the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice; the National Council of the Churches of Christ in America; the United Auto Workers (UAW); and many others (1). As seen in the agenda for the original march (3), speakers and performers included: march organizer Bayard Rustin; singers Marian Anderson, Odetta, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan; Little Rock civil rights veteran Daisy Lee Bates; actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee; American Jewish Congress president Rabbi Joachim Prinz; founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters A. Philip Randolph; UAW president Walter Reuther; NAACP president Roy Wilkins; National Urban League president Whitney Young; and SNCC leader John Lewis (1). The 1963 event culminated in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, famous “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (4).
Today’s March for Jobs and Justice in Washington, DC, led by veterans of the 1963 march and by the Civil Rights Museum on Wheels, a restored transit bus from the segregation era, will commemorate the 1963 event along with marches and gatherings in many other parts of the country (5). President Obama will speak at the Lincoln Memorial at 3 PM, the same time at which Dr. King delivered his speech in 1963 (6).
This article is part of a monthly series from the Diversity Council about topics related to diversity and multiculturalism.
Sources:
1. https://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_march_on_washington_for_jobs_and_freedom/
2. For the text of the act, see https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97
3. https://todaysdocument.tumblr.com/post/59192681428/official-program-for-the-march-on-washington-50
4. Portions of the speech can be viewed in many YouTube videos, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRIF4_WzU1w
5. https://50thanniversarymarchonwashington.com/event/exclusive-d-c-permit-to-march-through-our-nations-capital-reveals-details-of-august-28-2013-march/
6. https://tv.msnbc.com/2013/08/24/50th-anniversary-of-the-march-on-washington-in-photos/
Debbie Mohr
Diversity Council (ETS: Libraries)
08/28/2013 |