The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a massive civil rights action on August 28, 1963. A key organizer was A. Phillip Randolf, who in 1941 had planned the March on Washington in the wake of high unemployment numbers in the Black community. President Roosevelt urged Randolf to call off the march. Randolf refused and threatened to bring 100,000 marchers to Washington D.C. Put in a bind, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 banning discriminatory employment practices by federal agencies and all unions and companies engaged in war-related work. Accomplishing the goal of the community, the March of 1941 was called off.

In 1963, the momentum from the Civil Rights movement lead Randolf to call for a March on Washington, this time with the help of the activists and organizations like Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and Negro American Labor Council (NALC). For months the group’s organized, prepared transportation, living arrangements, food and water supplies, and portable restrooms. On August 28, 250,000 people, traveled to Washington D.C. to march for racial and economic freedom.  Dr. Kings gave his  famous “I Have a Dream” speech; John Lewis and Roy Wilkins also spoke to the crowd. Performances by Joan Baez, Marian Anderson, and Bob Dylan also brought hope and the spirit of change into the crowd.

The goals of the March were a comprehensive Civil Rights Bill, desegregation of all public schools, a federal work program that trained and placed unemployed workers, and a Federal Fair Employment Practices Act that would ban discrimination in all employment. These goals were accomplished through the March’s pressure of the Kennedy administration which passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the following year.



Sources:

Cleveland, Robinson, and Rustin Bayard. Final Plans for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom - The Commons commonslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/1963-Final-Plans-for-the-Organizing-Manual-No.-2-March-on-Washington-for-Jobs-and-Freedom.pdf. Accessed 25 Oct. 2023. 

“March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/march-washington-jobs-and-freedom. Accessed 25 Oct. 2023. 

“The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” Legal Defense Fund, 5 Oct. 2023, www.naacpldf.org/march-on-washington/#:~:text=On%20August%2028%201963%2C%20a,long%20overdue%20civil%20rights%20protections.