To commemorate the August 28th, 1963 March on Washington, the NAACP has announced a 50th anniversary gathering on the National Mall. The event will be held on August 24.
The March on Washington
As blacks faced continuing discrimination in the postwar years, the March on Washington group met annually to reiterate blacks' demands for economic equality. The civil rights movement of the 1960stransformed the political climate, and in 1963, black leaders began to plan a new March on Washington, designed specifically to advocate passage of the Civil Rights Act then stalled in Congress. Chaired again by A. Philip Randolph and organized by his longtime associate, Bayard Rustin, this new March for Jobs and Freedom was expected to attract 100,000 participants. President John F. Kennedy showed as little enthusiasm for the march as had Roosevelt, but this time the black leaders would not be dissuaded. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference put aside their long-standing rivalry, black and white groups across the country were urged to attend, and elaborate arrangements were made to ensure a harmonious event. The growing disillusion among some civil rights workers was reflected in a speech planned by John Lewis of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, but in order to preserve the atmosphere of goodwill, leaders of the march persuaded Lewis to omit his harshest criticisms of the Kennedy administration.
The march was an unprecedented success. More than 200,000 black and white Americans shared a joyous day of speeches, songs, and prayers led by a celebrated array of clergymen, civil rights leaders, politicians, and entertainers. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's soaring address climaxed the day; through his eloquence, the phrase “I Have a Dream” became an expression of the highest aspirations of the civil rights movement.
Roger Simon writing for PJ Media comments:
“When we are debating Oprah Winfrey’s right to buy a thirty-five thousand dollar purse or whether Barack Obama’s dog should be flown to Martha’s Vineyard in the canine’s own private state-of-the art military transport, you know it’s finished. Or should be.”
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“Black unemployment is at record levels during the administration of the first black president and that horrible situation is aided and abetted by those organizations. They are determined to preserve the image of black people as victims — an insulting self-fullfilling prophecy. What was once a solution has become the problem.”
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“The race card is a perfect example of this division and why this movement should be extinguished. Anybody who plays the race card in our country today is less than pond scum. It has become the 21st century equivalent of accusing someone of witchcraft in eighteenth century Salem.”
An excerpt from Martin Luther King's commencement address at Oberlin College pinpoints how far from the dream today's so-called civil rights leaders have veered from its original objections:
"We sing a little song in our struggle - you've heard it - We Shall Overcome. And by that we do not mean that we shall overcome the white man. In the struggle for racial justice the Negro must not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, to substitute one tyranny for another. A doctrine of black supremacy is as dangerous as a doctrine of white supremacy. God is not interested in the freedom of black men or brown men or yellow men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where every man will respect the dignity and worth of personality. So when we sing We Shall Overcome, we are singing a hymn of faith, a hymn of optimism, a hymn of faith in the future."
via LubbockOnline, Mr. Conservative's Blog:
“The clouds of injustice and slavery are again forming. Keeping people poor and fearful to insure their votes is nothing more than slavery. Forcibly taking the money of others to provide politicians with the money to buy votes is also slavery. If Dr. King were still among us, he would not approve of Barack Obama and the Progressive Left.
The “Hope and Change” we were promised has been nothing more than a plan for the expansion of Socialist slavery. It has had no connection with Dr. King’s dream.”
The Patriot Post noted:
“Black conservatives of national stature, like Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powel, Ward Connerly, Michael Steele, Jesse Lee Peterson, Alan Keyes, Don Scoggins, Alvin Williams, Ken Blackwell, Thomas Sowell, Star Parker and Walter Williams are routinely castigated by Jackson, et al., as ‘Uncle Toms’ and ‘puppets.’ Yet these are the men and women following the call of King.”
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at the National Mall
Robert Woodson defined the changes that have occurred since the passing of Dr. King:
“It is Dr. King's attempt to bring forward this message that I remember most. Many of the civil rights leaders who have followed him no longer refer to the gospel of Jesus Christ as the basis of their message. Instead, they have embraced poverty programs. Instead, they have secularized the movement. They have told young people that they should be exempt from responsibility: It is OK to become fathers and mothers before you become women and men, because you have been a victim of discrimination. It is OK for you to kill and maim one another -- after all, you are a victim of society. As a consequence of this drumbeat of despair -- this drumbeat of victimization -- we have the kind of decline and despair that exists today.”
Emmett Till
Emmett Till
Popular quotes by MLK:
- “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”
- “I have a dream 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.”
- “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
- “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character that is the goal of true education.”
- “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
- “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Robert F. Kennedy speaking to a Civil Rights crowd in front of the Justice Department building, June 1963.
President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitney Young, and James Farmer, January 1964.
Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln, August 28, 1963
Martin Luther King Jr. waves from the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. during the March on Washington.
"I was really, really involved. I didn't realize at the time how dangerous the situation was. The only thing I was concerned with was that I wanted my freedom, I wanted to be able to go where I wanted, like everyone else did." - Dannela Bryant, Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History
Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth leading marchers in prayer
just before they are arrested
just before they are arrested
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