Wednesday, August 28, 1963: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

     More than 200,000 Americans, most of them black but many of them white, demonstrated here today for a full and speedy program of civil rights and equal job opportunities.

     It was the greatest assembly for a redress of grievances that this capital has ever seen.
     One hundred years and 240 days after Abraham Lincoln enjoined the emancipated slaves to "abstain from all violence" and "labor faithfully for reasonable wages," this vast throng proclaimed in march and song and through the speeches of their leaders that they were still waiting for the freedom and the jobs.
     There was no violence to mar the demonstration. In fact, at times there was an air of hootenanny about it as groups of schoolchildren clapped hands and swung into the familiar freedom songs.
     But if the crowd was good-natured, the underlying tone was one of dead seriousness. The emphasis was on "freedom" and "now." At the same time the leaders emphasized, paradoxically but realistically, that the struggle was just beginning.
     -- New York Times (link to front page below)
     -- Aerial photo from Associated Press; Lincoln photo from New York World-Telegram and Sun
    

-- Summaries and links

* National Museum of American History: @

* Federal Highway Administration: @

* Civil Rights Digital Library: @

* Civil Rights Movement Veterans: @
* PBS: @

* NPR: @
* 50th Anniversary March on Washington website: @

* "One Dream" (Time magazine): @

-- Printed materials
* Program (from Wright State University Libraries): @ and @

* Final organization plans (from Tulane University Digital Library): @
* "An Appeal By The March Leaders" (from Social Welfare History Project): @
* Other materials (from crmvet.org): @
* Other materials (from Library of Congress): @

-- Videos

* Universal Newsreel: @ 

* Same newsreel as above, with different narration: @
* U.S. Information Agency: @

* "The March" (James Blue): @

* "The Bus" (Haskell Wexler): @
* Edith Lee-Payne: @

* Hollywood roundtable: @

* "Reflections on the 1963 March on Washington" (George Washington University, 1998): @

-- Photos
* Library of Congress (search for March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom): @
* National Archives (search for Civil Rights March on Washington): @
* Walter P. Reuther Library: @
* Life.Time.com: @
* Time LightBox: @
* Smithsonian Magazine: @

-- Speeches

* Audio and transcript of King's speech (from American Rhetoric): @

* Video: @

* Early draft of speech (from Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change): @
* Annotated version of 1963 speech in Washington (by Clayborne Carson, director, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University): @
* Post on earlier "I Have a Dream" speech (November 27, 1962): @
* "Freedom March on Washington" (from PRX; album includes other speeches from event): @
* "Two Versions of John Lewis' Speech" (from billmoyers.com): @

-- Radio
* Educational Radio Network coverage (from WGBH): @

-- Oral histories
* Smithsonian Magazine: @
* Capitol Hill History Project: @
* Robert Romer: @

-- Books / magazines / newspapers
* "The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights" (William P. Jones, 2013): @
* "Nobody Turn Me Around: A People's History of the 1963 March on Washington" (Charles Euchner, 2010): @
* "Like A Mighty Stream: The March on Washington, August 28, 1963" (Patrik Henry Bass, 2002): @

* "Memory, History and the March on Washington" (by Clayborne Carson): @
* Life magazine, August 23 (pages 4 and 63): @

* Life magazine, September 6: @

* The Crisis, October (NAACP magazine): @

* Ebony magazine, November (coverage starts on Page 29): @
* New York Times front page, August 29: @

* Washington Post front page, August 29: @
* "I Have a Dream ... / Peroration by Dr. King Sums Up A Day The Capital Will Remember"  (New York Times): @

* Associated Press, August 28: @
* Miami News, August 28: @ and August 29: @

* Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 29: @

-- President Kennedy's meeting with march leaders (August 28)

* "JFK, A. Philip Randolph and the March on Washington" (from White House Historical Association): @

* Kennedy statement (from American Presidency Project): @

* Photo (from JFK Library): @

-- Earlier post

* Plans for March on Washington (July 2, 1963): @ 

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