The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in
Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963
Attended by some 250,000 people,
it was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation's capital, and
one of the first to have extensive television coverage
1963 was
noted for racial unrest and civil rights demonstrations. Nationwide
outrage was sparked by media coverage of police actions in Birmingham,
Alabama, where attack dogs and fire hoses were turned against
protestors
The March on Washington represented a coalition of several civil
rights organizations, all of which generally had different approaches
and different agendas. The "Big Six" organizers were -
- James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equlity
- Martin Luther King Jr of he Southern
Christian Leadership Conference John Lewis, of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
- A Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
- Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and
- Whitney Young, Jr., of
the National Urban League
The stated demands of the march were -
- the passage of meaningful civil
rights legislation
- the elimination of racial segregation in public
schools
- protection for demonstrators against police brutality a major
public-works program to provide jobs
- the passage of a law prohibiting
racial discrimination in public and private hiring
- a $2 an hour minimum wage and self-government for the District of Columbia which had a black
majority.
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