1963 - March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
"The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have A Dream” speech." - https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington
Extracted from The Smithsonian Magazine:
Ken Howard:
You have to back up and think about what was happening at the time. Nationally, in 1962, you have James Meredith, the first black to attend the University of Mississippi, that was national news. In May 1963, Bull Connor with the dogs and the fire hoses, turning them on people, front-page news. And then in June, that summer, you have Medgar Evers shot down in the South, and his body actually on view on 14th Street at a church in D.C. So you had a group of individuals who had been not just oppressed, but discriminated against and killed because of their color. The March on Washington symbolized a rising up, if you will, of people who were saying enough is enough.
John Lewis, Chairman of SNCC (later a 13-term congressman from Georgia)
A. Philip Randolph had this idea in the back of his mind for many years. When he had his chance to make another demand for a March on Washington, he told President Kennedy in a meeting at the White House in June 1963 that we were going to march on Washington. It was the so-called “Big Six,” Randolph, James Farmer, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, Martin Luther King Jr. and myself. Out of the blue Mr. Randolph spoke up. He was the dean of black leadership, the spokesperson. He said “Mr. President, the black masses are restless and we are going to march on Washington.” President Kennedy didn’t like the idea, hearing people talk about a march on Washington. He said, “If you bring all these people to Washington, won’t there be violence and chaos and disorder and we will never get a civil rights bill through the Congress?” Mr. Randolph responded, “Mr. President, this will be an orderly, peaceful, nonviolent protest.”
EVENTS PROCEEDING THE MARCH:
1) THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION: Decreed by President Abraham Lincoln on 1 January 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation declared slaves in all confederate states then at war with the Union “forever free” and made them eligible for paid military service in the Union Army.
2) 100 years later: 1961/62 - MLK In 1961 made multiple appeals to President John F. Kennedy to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation to outlaw segregation in commemoration of the centennial of the original document.
3) December 1961 telegram to Kennedy called for “a second Emancipation Proclamation to free all Negroes from second class citizenship” in line with the “defense of democratic principles and practices here” in the United States (King, 18 December 1961).
4) On 17 May 1962, the sixth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, King sent Kennedy a 75-page appeal to request a “national rededication to the principles of the Emancipation Proclamation and for an executive order prohibiting segregation” (King, 17 May 1962). Clarence B. Jones, King’s legal advisor, recommended that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference send out copies of this appeal to all the major national organizations before 22 September 1962, the 100th anniversary of the earlier issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation as a military order.
5) At the 28 August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech, he noted that the Emancipation Proclamation gave hope to black slaves. The following year Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a concrete step toward fulfilling the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation.