In class today, we watched a short film discussing the March on Washington. Amidst the civil rights movement in the 1960s, many peaceful protests were held to spread awareness of the cause.
While many of the protests held by civil rights activists were peaceful, much spasmodic violence broke out against them. At one-point attack dogs were released which shocked everyone.
A. Philip Randolph was the first leader to have a loud voice preaching mass action. He sent a message to Bayard Rustin reading, “rather than keep this a southern black movement, we need to organize a march on Washington that would make it a national movement”. This paved the way for the organization of the March on Washington.
Famous civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr, began formulating support for the march. He called for a nonviolent, peaceful march on Washington by the hundreds of thousands.
MLK, Rustin, and Randolph were invited into the White House to meet with President John F Kennedy regarding plans for the march. JFK was reluctant at first because any potential violence had the potential of halting any progression of civil rights. However, when JFK witnessed how stubborn MLK, Rustin, and Randolph were, he joined the force.
JFK was told that the civil rights movement was infiltrated by communists, specifically Stanley Levison. They used this as justification for wiretapping conversations between Leviton and MLK, but there was never any resulting proof of Communism.
Organizers of the March worked extremely long days, almost 18 hours, leading up to the big day!
The night before the March, anticipation was intense in the city. No one knew what was going to happen.
During the March, about 250,000 people were attending from all across America. During peak hours of the day, about 100 busses were showing up every hour. That is almost two busses a minute!
Many speeches and artists performed during the March. Joan Baez’s song, “We Shall Overcome” brought the entire crowd together.
For further reading, consider the following articles:
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington
https://www.naacp.org/marchonwashington/
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