WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands gathered early Saturday on the nation’s “front yard,” the National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial, yearning for a bit of that transcendent sense of racial unity heralded on this spot by the Rev. Martin Luther King 50 years ago in his “I Have a Dream” speech.
From the steps where King spoke, early speakers ranging from former NAACP chairman Julian Bond to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. raised myriad themes of voting rights, widening economic disparity and racial issues in America that, despite so many advances, remain unfinished business to this day.
Jackson punctuated remarks with the refrain “keep dreaming.”
Aging veterans of the original March on Washington gathered with younger generations, amassing a crowd that in contrast is more female, more Hispanic, more diverse by sexual orientation and far more tech-savvy than 50 years ago. source: USA Today
Although African Americans had been legally freed from slavery, elevated to the status of citizens and given full voting rights at the end of the American Civil War, many continued to face economic and political repression. A system of legal discrimination known as Jim Crow was pervasive in the American South, ensuring that Black Americans remained second-class citizens. They experienced discrimination from businesses and governments, and in some places were prevented from voting through intimidation and violence. Twenty-one states prohibited interracial marriage.
The impetus for a march on Washington developed over time, and earlier efforts to organize such a demonstration included the March on Washington Movement of the 1940s. 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—was a key instigator in 1941. With Bayard Rustin, Randolph called for 10,000 black workers to march on Washington, in protest of discriminatory hiring by U.S. military contractors and demanding an Executive Order. Faced with a mass march scheduled for July 1, 1941, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25. The order established the Committee on Fair Employment Practice and banning discriminatory hiring in the defense industry. Randolph called off the March.
Randolph and Rustin continued to organize around the idea of a mass march on Washington. They envisioned several large marches during the 1940s, but all were called off (despite criticism from Rustin). Their Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, held at the Lincoln Memorial on May 17, 1957, featured key leaders including Adam Clayton Powell, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Roy Wilkins. Mahalia Jackson performed.
The 1963 march was an important part of the rapidly expanding Civil Rights Movement, which involved demonstrations and nonviolent direct action across the United States. 1963 also marked the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.
Violent confrontations broke out in the South: in Cambridge, Maryland; Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Goldsboro, North Carolina; Somerville, Tennessee; Saint Augustine, Florida; and across Mississippi. Most of these incidents involved white people retaliating against nonviolent demonstrators. Many people wanted to march on Washington, but disagreed over how the march should be conducted. Some called for a complete shutdown of the city through civil disobedience. Others argued that the movement should remain nationwide in scope, rather than focus its energies on the capitol. There was widespread perception that the Kennedy administration had not lived up to its promises in the 1960 election; King described Kennedy’s race policy as “tokenism”.
The public failure of the Baldwin–Kennedy meeting on May 24, 1963, underscored the divide between the needs of Black America and the understanding of Washington politicians. But it also provoked the Kennedys to action on the civil rights issue.) On June 11, John Kennedy announced that he would begin to push for civil rights legislation—the law which eventually became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That night, Mississippi activist Medgar Evers was murdered in his own driveway, further escalating national tension around the issue of racial equality.