Fifty years after the 1963 March on Washington

Southern Illinoisan, August 28, 2013

          On August 28, 1963, 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Participants listened to speakers from all the major civil rights organizations, highlighted by Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

With the fiftieth anniversary of the March, media attention has focused on the stirring final section of King's speech, in which he outlines his dream "that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed--we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." The implicit message, then, will be one of self-congratulation--once upon a time, we had segregation and blacks could not vote; now we've outlawed the former and guaranteed the latter. We have achieved King's dream.

But the real message of the March on Washington is far different. The true meaning is, in the words of March organizer A. Philip Randolph, "Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted."

In fact, the March had its genesis more than twenty years earlier as Randolph's brainchild. A labor organizer, Randolph had struggled for twelve years to organize African-American railroad porters into a union. By 1937, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters had established itself as the largest black labor union in the country.

As wars and rumors of war spread across Europe in the late-1930s, the U.S. government increased military spending and new hiring in defense industries enabled America to begin pulling out of the Great Depression. But this recovery was for whites only, as the war industries would not hire blacks.

Randolph decided the situation called for mass action. Thus in January 1941, he called for 10,000 blacks to hold a rally on July 1 at the Lincoln Memorial demanding Roosevelt issue an executive order abolishing discrimination in national defense jobs .

Randolph's appeal resonated with rank-and-file blacks. By early summer, the number of expected participants had risen to 100,000. Ordinary African Americans were inspired by Randolph's vision. "You possess power, great power," he urged his followers. "Our problem is to harness and hitch it up for action on the broadest scale."

President Roosevelt, though, was desperate to avoid the March. Proud of his close relationship with African Americans, Roosevelt did not want the embarrassment of 100,000 protesters in Washington. On the other hand, Randolph was not going to cancel the March without an acceptable quid pro quo. On June 25, the two sides reached a deal. Randolph called off the March and, in exchange, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, ending discrimination in employment in defense industries, and established a Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC). While Randolph did not get all he sought-- the FEPC was largely powerless--two million blacks were employed in wartime defense work and African Americans largely joined the broader economic recovery.

In late 1962, seeking to pressure Congress to pass fair employment legislation, Randolph proposed a rally in Washington. The plan met with only lukewarm support at first, but momentum picked up in early 1963 as King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference began demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, which were met with increasing brutality by police. At this point Randolph adapted his plan, and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom won the enthusiastic approval of a broad coalition of civil rights, labor and church organizations.

Like Roosevelt before him, Kennedy felt the timing of the March inopportune, warning organizers, "We want success in Congress, not just a big show at the Capitol. Some of these people are looking for an excuse to be against us."

Randolph replied, "The Negroes are already in the streets. It is very likely impossible to get them off. If they are bound to be in the streets in any case, is it not better that they be led by organizations dedicated to civil rights and disciplined by struggle rather than to leave them to other leaders who care neither about civil rights nor nonviolence?" King emphasized that the March was not intended to intimidate, but was instead an example of "creative lobbying."

The March's ultimate success has tended to overshadow the fact that Randolph saw one of the primary goals as securing economic rights. In forging a broad, multiracial coalition of labor and religious organizations, Randolph sought to place the civil rights struggle in the forefront of the rights of all working people. In words that remain as true today as they were fifty years ago, he said, "Look for the enemies of Medicare, or higher minimum wages, of Social Security, or Federal aid to education, and there you will find the enemy of the Negro, the coalition of [southern Democrats] and reactionary Republicans that seek to dominate the Congress."