The 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington

I’m not sure how much attention it is getting nationally or internationally, but today is the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

That’s its official name, but a lot of people remember it as the event where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Over 250,000 people attended the march, the biggest of its time and one of the first to have major television coverage.  It was a huge event in the Civil Rights Movement and is credited as one of the catalysts for the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

The goals for the march were:

• Passage of meaningful civil rights legislation.
• Immediate elimination of school segregation.
• A program of public works, including job training, for the unemployed.
• A Federal law prohibiting discrimination in public or private hiring.
• A $2-an-hour minimum wage nationwide.
• Withholding Federal funds from programs that tolerate discrimination.
• Enforcement of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution by reducing congressional representation from States that disenfranchise citizens.
• A broadened Fair Labor Standards Act to currently excluded employment areas.
• Authority for the Attorney General to institute injunctive suits when constitutional rights are violated

August 28, 1963 also fell on a Wednesday, and many workers in Washington, DC either participated or stayed home and watched on television, as the coverage of the march pre-empted other shows.

The march is being re-enacted today in Washington and will be followed by a ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial.  While I won’t be participating (crowds of that size make my panic attacks flare up), I will be watching the coverage.

I still find it amazing that all of this happened only fifty years ago.  I know our society isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the concept of this type of segregation seems so foreign to me.  I guess that’s a sign that we have moved forward.  But there’s still work to be done.

And to cite my sources, in addition to my own knowledge, facts were pulled from here and here.