Today marks the 59th anniversary of one of the most important events and addresses in our nation's history: the 1963 March on Washington led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Assembling on the National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial were a quarter of a million marchers demanding their civil rights, equal job opportunity, fair housing and non-discrimination. Such civil rights leaders as Whitney Young, John Lewis, A. Phillip Randolph and others accompanied Dr. King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Entertainers and celebrities like Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis and wife Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary spoke or performed.
Dr. King's speech that day is best known for his repeated statement "I have a dream," as he described a nation where all would be judged not on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character. He spoke of the nation's "promissory note" that was still due to its African-American citizens who were disenfranchised by Jim Crow laws, and the need to act in the "fierce urgency of now," a phrase that would be memorialized by the first black President many years later. The notion that we've come a long way is correct, but is in danger of being undermined by the far-right movement and their Supreme Court, which has crippled voting rights and presided over racially-motivated gerrymandering. Voting, even when Republicans are making it hard to, has to be the weapon to fight them with and one that Dr. King would vigorously endorse.
(photo: Getty Images)
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