Man Skates From Chicago To Washington For Demonstration The 1963 march on Washington was a major event in a tradition of orderly non-violent protest. Asa Philip Randolph, the man who proposed the 1963 March on Washington, tried to stage a march on Washington over twenty years before. At that time, he accepted President Roosevelt’s order and created the Fair Employment Practice Committee and the 1940 march was called off (Saunders 16). However, in 1963 there were mounting reasons to have this walk; black unemployment, violence against demonstrators in Birmingham, and the Civil Rights Bill were all reaching peak interest at this time and the march could wait no longer. It took a bit of convincing to get President Kennedy to allow the march to happen, but in the end he gave the go ahead declaring that the march would be “in the great tradition of peaceful assembly for the redress of grievance” (Wexler 180). Our most recent source, published in 2002, states that “[the marchers] had the unprecedented blessing of President John F. Kennedy” (Barber 141). However, it should be noted that texts written around 1963 show that Kennedy was indeed leery about letting the march take place and he originally attempted to dissuade the organizers from marching. Kennedy feared that the demonstration would lead to violence and the disruption of Congress and the capital (Wexler 179). The day of the march started with people slowly arriving at the Washington Monument around seven o’clock AM. The organizers were a little nervous about the size of their turn out until the rush of forty thousand people at nine o’clock AM. By eleven o’clock AM, the number had doubled (Saunders 9). Sources agree that greater than 20... ... middle of paper ... ...96-347. Barber, Lucy G. Marching on Washington: The Forging of An American Political Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. “Civil Rights Movement.” Encyclopedia of American Political History. 1st ed. 1984. Fey, Harold E. “Revolution Without Hatred.” Christian Century 11 Sept. 1963: 1094-95. Jeffrey, Jonathan. “Social Sciences Book Review” Library Journal June 1993: 154-55. “Marching on Washington: An Old Story to the Capital.” US News and World Report 2 Sept. 1963: 29. Reston, James. “The White Man’s Burden and All That.” New York Times 28 Aug. 1963: L32. Saunders, Doris E., ed. The Day They Marched. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company Inc., 1963. Wexler, Sanford. An Eyewitness History of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Checkmark Books: An Imprint of Facts On File Inc., 1993.
The 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, where Martin Luther King gave his prophetic “I have a Dream Speech” attracted over 250,000 followers (Stewart, Smith, & Denton 2012, p. 12). The Civil Rights Movement had enormous momentum and was ready stay until justice was brought to every African-American in the United States of
Historians offer different perceptions of the significance of Martin Luther King and the 1963 March on Washington. Without examining this event within its historical context the media publicity and iconic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech can easily overshadow progress that was already underway in America. It was insisted by prominent civil rights activist Ella Baker, ‘the movement made Martin rather than Martin making the movement.’ What is important not to overlook is the significant change that took place in the United States during the previous 100 years. Such that, many influential figures in support of racial equality opposed the March. The Civil Rights Act proposed by President Kennedy in 1963 was already in the legislative process. Furthermore the Federal Government was now reasserting power over the entire of the United States by enforcing a policy of desegregation. It is important to note that these changes all took place less than one hundred years after the Thirteenth Amendment in 1965 abolished slavery, and the Fourteenth amendment in 1968 acknowledged the rights of former slaves to be acknowledged as U.S citizens. With this level of progress Kennedy was against the March going ahead due to the argument that it was limited in what it could achieve. Today, King’s 1963 Speech is viewed as one of the most iconic speeches in history. However, was it a key turning point in African Americans achieving racial equality? Federal endorsement would suggest yes after decades of southern states being able to subvert the Federal law designed to break down segregation. This support built upon the corner stones of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments in the nineteenth century. Therefore looking at the national status of black Americans fro...
When the Government Stood Up For Civil Rights "All my life I've been sick and tired, and now I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired. No one can honestly say Negroes are satisfied. We've only been patient, but how much more patience can we have?" Mrs. Hamer said these words in 1964, a month and a day before the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. She speaks for the mood of a race, a race that for centuries has built the nation of America, literally, with blood, sweat, and passive acceptance. She speaks for black Americans who have been second class citizens in their own home too long. She speaks for the race that would be patient no longer that would be accepting no more. Mrs. Hamer speaks for the African Americans who stood up in the 1950's and refused to sit down. They were the people who led the greatest movement in modern American history - the civil rights movement. It was a movement that would be more than a fragment of history, it was a movement that would become a measure of our lives (Shipler 12). When Martin Luther King Jr. stirred up the conscience of a nation, he gave voice to a long lain dormant morality in America, a voice that the government could no longer ignore. The government finally answered on July 2nd with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is historically significant because it stands as a defining piece of civil rights legislation, being the first time the national government had declared equality for blacks. The civil rights movement was a campaign led by a number of organizations, supported by many individuals, to end discrimination and achieve equality for American Blacks (Mooney 776). The forefront of the struggle came during the 1950's and the 1960's when the feeling of oppression intensified and efforts increased to gain access to public accommodations, increased voting rights, and better educational opportunities (Mooney). Civil rights in America began with the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, which ended slavery and freed blacks in theory. The Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 were passed, guaranteeing the rights of blacks in the courts and access to public accommodation. These were, however, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, who decided that the fourteenth did not protect blacks from violation of civil rights, by individuals.
On the home front, A. Philip Randolph’s threat to force a march on Washington to advocate for civil rights in wartime employment represented this new stance. When government defense contracting first started in the early 1940s, the US government acquiesced to the demands of many corporations that solely stipulated white hiring. For instance, of 100,000 aircraft workers in 1940, only 240 of the...
“The president feared that it might make the legislature vote against civil rights laws in reaction to a perceived threat. Once it became clear that the march would go on, however, he supported it” (Ross). The event took over a year to plan, with heaps of organizations’ assistance. The event soon became the largest demonstration for human rights in Washington D.C. (Official Program).
Success was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. Starting with the year 1954, there were some major victories in favor of African Americans. In 1954, the landmark trial Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas ruled that segregation in public education was unfair. This unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the prior Plessy vs. Ferguson case during which the “separate but equal” doctrine was created and abused. One year later, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. launched a bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama after Ms. Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat in the “colored section”. This boycott, which lasted more than a year, led to the desegregation of buses in 1956. Group efforts greatly contributed to the success of the movement. This is not only shown by the successful nature of the bus boycott, but it is shown through the success of Martin Luther King’s SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The conference was notable for peacefully protesting, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. Thanks to the SCLC, sit-ins and boycotts became popular during this time, adding to the movement’s accomplishments. The effective nature of the sit-in was shown during 1960 when a group of four black college students sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in hopes of being served. While they were not served the first time they commenced their sit-in, they were not forced to leave the establishment; their lack of response to the heckling...
People from around the country came by any means necessary to support the march. One man from Chicago began rol...
Justice is often misconceived as injustice, and thus some essential matters that require more legal attentions than the others are neglected; ergo, some individuals aim to change that. The principles of civil disobedience, which are advocated in both “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. to the society, is present up to this time in the U.S. for that purpose.
Aziwike, Abayomi. "The Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King: Continuing the Legacy of the Great Walk to Freedom of 1963." Global Research. N.p., 25 Mar. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
In the museum I learned that A. Philip Randolph wanted to march in Washington to protest against the exclusions of African Americans from federal employment. Due to this,
“The idea of a march on Washington seized the imagination of A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.” (Takaki,
Ross, S. (n.d.). Civil Rights March on Washington. Infoplease. Retrieved April 11, 2014, from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/marchonw
From the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the Civil Rights Movement and the Pro-Life Movement of the 1960s, to the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street Movement of current times, “those struggling against unjust laws have engaged in acts of deliberate, open disobedience to government power to uphold higher principles regarding human rights and social justice” (DeForrest, 1998, p. 653) through nonviolent protests. Perhaps the most well-known of the non-violent protests are those associated with the Civil Rights movement. The movement was felt across the south, yet Birmingham, Alabama was known for its unequal treatment of blacks and became the focus of the Civil Rights Movement. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, African-Americans in Birmingham, began daily demonstrations and sit-ins to protest discrimination at lunch counters and in public facilities. These demonstrations were organized to draw attention to the injustices in the city.
Kennedy’s crusade began slowly to the dismay of many civil rights leaders in February of 1963. He began by sending the United States Congress a “Special Message on Civil Rights,” stating,
The Civil Rights Movement began in order to bring equal rights and equal voting rights to black citizens of the US. This was accomplished through persistent demonstrations, one of these being the Selma-Montgomery March. This march, lead by Martin Luther King Jr., targeted at the disenfranchisement of negroes in Alabama due to the literacy tests. Tension from the governor and state troopers of Alabama led the state, and the whole nation, to be caught in the violent chaos caused by protests and riots by marchers. However, this did not prevent the March from Selma to Montgomery to accomplish its goals abolishing the literacy tests and allowing black citizens the right to vote.