March on Washington, 60 years on

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March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963. Photo: Archive Photos/Getty Images Tomorrow, civil-rights leaders will mark the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington with a rally and march by a multiracial, interfaith coalition of allies at the Lincoln Memorial, Axios' Keldy Ortiz reports. Why it matters: The 1963 protest — where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech — sought to bring attention to jobs, voting rights and police brutality. The issues are eerily similar in 2023. ? By the numbers: Poverty rates for Black Americans have fallen in the decades since the first March on Washington, but have remained high compared with other races. Today there are 60 Black lawmakers in Congress, compared with five in 1963. This time, the march will include civil rights organizations of different racial groups, reflecting the changing nation. "We have to figure out: How do we create the climate for all of us to engage forward," Martin Luther King III — a human-rights activist, and son of the civil-rights leader — told Axios. Today, Hispanics — not Black Americans, as in 1963 — are the largest minority group in the U.S. Pacific Islanders and Asians have seen among the biggest population increases in the last two decades. Flashback: Over 260,000 people attended the 1963 march. Go deeper: Details on tomorrow's march ...

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How Jews are joining the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington on Shabbat

(JTA) — Six decades ago, shortly before Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Rabbi Joachim Prinz called for racial equality in an address that began with the words, “I speak to you as an American Jew.”

https://www.jta.org/2023/08/25/politics/how-jews-are-joining-the-60th-anniversary-of-the-march-on-washington-on-shabbat?

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March on Washington anniversary comes amid voting rights, affirmative action battles

Martin Luther King Jr. said in his "I Have a Dream" speech 60 years ago that he dreamed "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 the content of their character."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/60th-anniversary-march-washington-continuation-civil-rights-fight/story?

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? = 1,000 words

Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP Above: A person holds an image of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as they listen to speakers during the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., yesterday. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP Yolanda King, the 15-year-old granddaughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., roused marchers with remarks delivered from the same spot her grandfather gave the "I Have A Dream" speech in 1963, AP notes. Attendees on the National Mall for the anniversary march. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

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Thousands march to mark the 60th anniversary of MLK's 'I Have a Dream' speech

Six decades ago, an estimated 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in the nation's capital. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech that day, on August 28, 1963, has since emerged as a paramount symbol of the push for racial and social equality.

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/26/1196190910/march-on-washington-mlk-dream-speech-anniversary?

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The Forgotten Radicalism of the March on Washington

The Forgotten Radicalism of the March on Washington, Jamelle Bouie, The New York Times
Less well remembered, in our collective memory at least, is the fact that both the march and King’s speech were organized around much more than opposition to anti-Black discrimination. It was officially known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, with a far more expansive vision for society than formal equality under the law. The march wasn’t a demand for a more inclusive arrangement under the umbrella of postwar American liberalism, as it might seem today. It was a demand for something more — for a social democracy of equals, grounded in the long Black American struggle to realize the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the potential of Reconstruction.

Consider the 10-point list of demands issued by the organizers of the march. They wanted “Comprehensive and effective civil rights legislation” to guarantee all Americans “access to all public accommodations, decent housing, adequate and integrated education” and “the right to vote.” They wanted “a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers — Negro and white — on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.” They wanted “a national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living.” They wanted federal legislation to protect workers from exploitation and a federal government that brought its full power to bear on discrimination and disenfranchisement.

Or, better yet, consider the labor leader A. Philip Randolph’s opening speech to the assembled marchers. “We want a free, democratic society dedicated to the political, economic and social advancement of man along moral lines,” said Randolph, for whom the 1963 March on Washington was the fulfillment of a call made more than two decades earlier, in the midst of World War II, to “Let the Negro masses speak with ten thousand Negroes strong, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in the Capital of the nation.”

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How We Forgot the “Jobs” Part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

The anti-racism of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech has overshadowed the demands for economic justice at the historic 1963 protest.

https://theintercept.com/2023/08/28/march-on-washington-jobs/?