The MARCH!

The march on Washington for jobs and fredom

August 28, 1963

Birmingham Alabama was the most segregated city in the United States in the 1960s. At this time, Dr. Martin Luther King was the voice of the civil rights movement.

Eugene "Bull" Connor was the police chief of Alabama who wanted to stop Dr. King and the civil rights movement. Dr King spent 3 months training people to be peaceful, however the people he trained were paralyzed by fear and ended up dropping out.

The president proposed a bill saying that there was equality for all. And race had no place in the U.S. This gave King an actual reason to do the march. They marched for jobs, and freedom. Dr. King said, "We are determined to be free in 63.", President Kennedy however, was worried that the march would try violent and hinder any chance for equality. But when he realized that the leaders weren't going to cancel the march, he decided to join them.

Norman Hill played a huge roll for the march as he was the field organizer. He traveled from city to city by bus, plane or train and organized and developed local people who would work to help generate a march in their city, and help raise funds for those to get to washington DC to represent them if they couldn't. They realized the more people they had, the better the march would be,

The day of the march many people arrived. Thousands of busses arrived every hour. This is when Dr. King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

" I have a dream (Mhm) that one day (Yes) this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed (Hah): “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” (Yeah, Uh-huh, Hear hear) [applause]I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia (Yes, Talk), the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.I have a dream (Yes) [applause] that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice (Yeah), sweltering with the heat of oppression (Mhm), will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice."

After the event, Presdient Kennedy invited the leaders of the march to the White House.