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Roy Wilkins with a few of the 250,000 participants on the Mall heading for the Lincoln Memorial in the NAACP march on Washington on August 28, 1963.
Credit: Library of Congress, P&P Collection
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March on Washington, 1963.
Credit: WAITING FOR RIGHTS
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 I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.
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— Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963
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Audio Links:
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March on Washington — August 28th, 1963
In 1963, Bayard Rustin and civil rights movement leaders organized the
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Blacks and whites of all ages
marched together for civil rights for all Americans. Estimates on the
size of the crowd varied from between 250,000 to 500,000. Most people
came by buses or trains chartered by the March on Washington organizers.
The demonstrators first gathered at the Washington Monument, where a stage
was set up for morning entertainment. Joan Baez opened the program with
"Oh Freedom" and led a rendition of "We Shall Overcome." Other performers
that day included the Albany Freedom Singers; Bob Dylan; and Peter, Paul
and Mary, whose version of Dylan's civil rights anthem "Blowin' in the
Wind" became an anthem for the era.
The main protest activities of the day occured later at the Lincoln
Memorial. Speakers included Bayard Rustin, Philip Randolph (AFL-CIO),
Ralph Abernathy (SCLC), Floyd McKissick (CORE), John Lewis (SNCC), Roy
Wilkins (NAACP), Whitney Young (National Urban League) and Walter Reuther
(AFL-CIO). Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream"
speech, one of the most important in American History. The March introduced
a new era in American politics when marching on Washington became a major
political strategy for activists over the course of the next 40 years.
An excerpt from King's speech.
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day out in the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice."
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