On 28 August 1963, more than 200,000 demonstrators gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to take part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march, which demonstrated to the entire nation the gap between the tenets of American democracy and the everyday experience of black Americans, was successful in pressuring the Kennedy administration to commit to passing federal civil rights legislation. It was during this event that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
In the summer of 1941, A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, called for a march on Washington to draw attention to the exclusion of the black community from the economic opportunities of the war years. The threat of 100,000 marchers in Washington, D.C., pushed Roosevelt to issue executive order #8802, desegregating the defense industries, and Randolph cancelled plans for the march in response.
By 1962, however, the goals of the original march—jobs and freedom—had still not been realized. The turmoil of the South, as well as the high levels of unemployment and disenfranchisement of many blacks, prompted Randolph to call for a new march. To help plan the event, he called on Bayard Rustin and other civil rights activists from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, the National Council of Churches, the United Auto Workers (UAW), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
A flyer produced by the National Office of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom articulated the six goals of the protest: "meaningful civil rights laws, a massive federal works program, full and fair employment, decent housing, the right to vote, and adequate integrated education." But as plans progressed, the primary goal of the march turned toward passing federal civil rights legislation put forward by Kennedy in the wake of the campaign in Birmingham.
The proposed march, however, caused great concern within the Kennedy administration. Kennedy believed that a mass gathering had the potential to undermine efforts being made to secure civil rights legislation and would damage the image of the United States internationally. He also believed that it might further aggravate racial tensions in America. Kennedy called Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders to the White House in late June 1962, but he was unable to persuade the organizers to cancel the march.
In addition, the March on Washington faced condemnation by Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X referred to it as the "farce on Washington," and any member of the Nation who attended the march was subject to a ninety-day suspension from the organization. The National Council of the AFL-CIO also chose not to support the march, adopting a position of neutrality. A number of international unions, however, independently declared their support and attended the march in substantial numbers. Hundreds of local unions also fully supported the effort.
The diversity of those in attendance was reflected by the event’s presenters and performers. They included Marian Anderson, Daisy Lee Bates, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, John Lewis, Odetta, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther, Bayard Rustin, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young, Jr.
After the march, King and other civil rights leaders met with President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House. Feeling the pressure of 200,000 Americans, Kennedy told them that he intended to throw his whole weight behind civil rights legislation. The march had not only achieved tangible goals, but it had also brought widespread attention to the struggle for civil rights. "The March on Washington established visibility in this nation. It showed the struggle was nearing a close, that people were coming together, that all the organizations could stand together," wrote King’s chief aide Ralph Abernathy. "It made it clear that we did not have to use violence to achieve the goals which we were seeking."