The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (or "The Great March on Washington," as styled in a sound recording released after the event) was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. It took place in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony during the march.
The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations, under the theme "jobs, and freedom." 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 non-black minorities.
The march is widely credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965).
Read more about March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom: Background and Organization, The March, Speakers, Singers, Media Coverage, Criticism
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“This is the village where the funeral
Stilted its dusty march over deep ruts
Up the hillside covered with queen’s lace
To the patch of weeds known finally to all.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“... Washington was not only an important capital. It was a city of fear. Below that glittering and delightful surface there is another story, that of underpaid Government clerks, men and women holding desperately to work that some political pull may at any moment take from them. A city of men in office and clutching that office, and a city of struggle which the country never suspects.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)
“The problem is simply this: no one can feel like CEO of his or her life in the presence of the people who toilet trained her and spanked him when he was naughty. We may have become Masters of the Universe, accustomed to giving life and taking it away, casually ordering people into battle or out of their jobs . . . and yet we may still dirty our diapers at the sound of our mommy’s whimper or our daddy’s growl.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)