Search results
CBS News anchor Roger Mudd introduces the network's coverage of the March on Washington, August 28, 1963, shows the route, and explains the purpose of the march. Correspondent Dave Dugan also...
- 7 min
- Overview
- What was the March on Washington?
- Who led the March on Washington?
- How is the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington being observed?
- How did CBS News cover the March on Washington in 1963?
On Aug. 28, 1963, Walter Cronkite began his evening news broadcast with a vivid description of the March on Washington. The day would come to be a watershed moment in the equal rights movement for Black Americans.
"They called it the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," said Cronkite. "They came from all over America. Negroes and Whites, housewives and Hollywood stars, senators and a few beatniks, clergymen and probably a few Communists. More than 200,000 of them came to Washington this morning in a kind of climax to a historic spring and summer in the struggle for equal rights."
The March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs was meant to support the Civil Rights Act, which President John F. Kennedy was attempting to pass through Congress. The act called for an expanded Civil Rights Commission, the desegregation of public schools and other locations and voting rights protections for Black Americans.
On the day of the march, more than 250,000 people walked from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. Cronkite remarked that the march sometimes looked "more like a parade of signs than of people," as marchers carried signs calling for equality and the end of police brutality.
Along the parade route was CBS News correspondent Dave Dugan. He called the enthusiasm of the march "contagious," with older attendees "taking it rather relaxed and calmly" and younger marchers singing freedom songs like "We Shall Overcome," bubbling with energy and "exuberance."
The Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964, after Kennedy's assassination in Dallas in November of 1963. It outlawed discrimination based on race, sex and other protected classes, prohibited discrimination against voters of color and racial segregation in schools. It would be one of the most important legislative bills passed in American history.
There were 10 main leaders of the march, according to a list of biographical information held by the JFK Presidential Library. The director of the march was A. Philip Randolph, who was 74 at the time. He organized Black workers across America and was key in convincing President Harry Truman to integrate the U.S. military after World War II.
Other major leaders included Eugene Carson Blake, a minister and former pastor to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Walter Reuther, a union organizer and presidential adviser. Also involved in leading the march was James Farmer, who created the Congress of Racial Equity and organized the Freedom Rides of 1961. Farmer was in jail at the time of the march after being arrested at a protest in Louisiana.
Also leading the march was John Lewis, who was arrested dozens of times in pursuit of equal rights and would go on to be a senator in Georgia, and King, who would make his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech as part of his duties that day.
The other leaders included Whitney Young, Matthew Ahmann, Roy Wilkins and Rabbi Joachim Prinz.
After the march, the leaders met with Kennedy, spending about 75 minutes with him and other officials. Kennedy released a statement praising the march and its leaders.
After the meeting in the White House, the civil rights leaders addressed media outside the presidential residence. King told assembled reporters that the president had made it "very clear that" they would need "very strong bipartisan support" to pass civil rights legislation that year.
One of the major observations of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington was an assembly at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, as thousands of people came to the monument to pay homage to King, marching from the Lincoln Memorial to the King Memorial.
"Let's not give up, let's not give in, let's not give out, we must move forward," his son, Martin Luther King III told the crowd.
Rev. Al Sharpton also addressed those gathered, telling them, "We're the children of the dream, let us march in the name of the dreamers."
"Martin Luther King said then, give us the ballot, and then he moved up and said, 'I have a dream,' but he gave his life for that dream," said 91-year-old civil rights leader Andrew Young, an aide to Dr. King and former congressman and United Nations ambassador.
Jacquelyn Bond Shropshire told CBS News she took part in the original march as a teenager.
"Well, it was much like today, except it was shoulder to shoulder, people, we could barely walk, and we could not stay in hotels because they were segregated at that time," Shropshire said.
According to Cronkite, it was a "balmy" 77 degrees on the day of the March on Washington, and the crowd had a "picnicking, holiday" spirit as the numbers swelled from tens of thousands to more than 250,000 attendees. The camera cut to a reporter standing with entertainer Lena Horne and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, active members of the civil rights movement.
Horne called the day "intense, to put it mildly."
"This is the beginning again, another beginning," she said.
Shuttlesworth, a civil rights activist from Birmingham, Alabama, said he saw the events of the day as the first step, not the end of the fight for equal rights.
"I think if anything, this does say, it is there ought to be little Washingtons all over, in every nook and cranny of this country," he said. "We are thinking at this time about organizing a march through the Black belt of Alabama and Mississippi, because until the people in the Black belt … can be free, then Americans on the best streets can't be free. … I think the message to the country is 'Free yourself by freeing us.'"
Soon, the march was underway, though it started earlier than expected, causing its leaders to have to run to catch up. The members of the march chanted slogans and carried signs.
- kerry.breen@paramount.com
- 18 min
- News Editor
- Kerry Breen
Jul 2, 2013 · This summer, BBC Two will air a special documentary celebrating the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom - renowned for Martin Luther King Jr’s now iconic ‘I Have a Dream’...
- The March created momentum for the Civil Rights Act. After King spoke, the event's key organizers, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, read their demands of lawmakers to the crowd.
- It made racism extremely uncool. It's easy to forget, but in 1963 blacks could be — and were — turned down for jobs and housing with impunity, says The Washington Post in an editorial.
- It sparked the career of the NFL's first black quarterback. Among those watching the March on Washington on their TV sets was James Harris, a high school football star in Monroe, La.
- It saved the civil rights movement. Focusing on the March on Washington's "tangible accomplishments" misses "the most important consequence of the march," says Michael Wenger at The Huffington Post: It inspired and focused people "at a moment when anger and frustration threatened both the sense of hope and the courageous non-violence that had characterized the civil rights movement."
March on, America!: Directed by Richard Whorf. With Richard Whorf, Sidney Blackmer, Douglas Kennedy, John Litel. The story of America from the Pilgrims in 1620 to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Americans always working for freedom.
- (144)
- Short, History
- Richard Whorf
- 1942-06-20
Jul 12, 2023 · A special March on Washington collection is available online as part of GBH OpenVault and it offers 15 hours of coverage, including numerous interviews with attendees and participants at the...
People also ask
When is the march on Washington on CBS?
What happened at the 1963 March on Washington?
Why was the march on Washington important?
What time is the march on Washington 60 years later?
What happened on the 60th anniversary of the march on Washington?
How many people participated in the great march on Washington?
Jan 29, 2021 · One-Hour Documentary Special Gives a Timely and Powerful Look at Events Leading to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March and 2020’s March on Washington 57 Years Later as the Nation Reels From Civil Unrest and a Global Pandemic.
