One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, injustice and racial inequality still characterized the lives of African Americans. Black Americans, young and the old alike, faced increased discrimination in the face of the United States Constitution that sought to promote equality and freedom to all Americans regardless of their race. Right from education access to employment and freedom, Black Americans continued to languish in institutionalized discrimination. In the clamour for civil rights, African Americans saw the political demonstration as a somewhat effective means to advocate for their constitutional rights. The March on Washington presented an opportunity to the Blacks to voice out their concerns to the American government, an aspect that culminated in unprecedented implications in the history of the U.S.
The Causes
After the Emancipation Declaration on September 22, 1862 (Jones, 2013), African Americans anticipated an accommodating American society whereby everybody would be treated equally irrespective of their race, language, or place of origin. Effective January 1, 1863, Emancipation Declaration was issued by President Abraham Lincoln declaring freedom to even those held as slaves (Younge, 2013). However, as Younge claims, despite the declaration freedom among African Americans remained elusive, informing the need for a political protest to push for the realization of the president’s objectives. One hundred years later, African Americans faced increased discrimination in the education sector, access to jobs, and political representation. Besides the rampant discrimination, civil rights activists faced violent attacks from the government forces. For instance, in 1963, civil rights demonstrators were violently attacked in Birmingham, Alabama (Hayden, 2015). These attacks, combined with the rising racial segregation and employment discrimination, built the momentum for the March on Washington protest.
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The Course
Before The March on Washington, A. Philip Randolph, an elder of the civil rights movement and the leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters had been organizing political protests against government-backed discrimination against African Americans. In 1963, Randolph planned a demonstration for jobs while the charismatic civil rights statesman, Martin Luther King Jnr. Together with his group, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference planned a parallel protest for freedom (Jones, 2013). As Jones expounds, the two groups merged their efforts culminating into one mass demonstration. On June 22, President John F. Kennedy persuaded the civil rights leaders to stop the protest in fear of violent implication; however, the leaders vowed to proceed with the march. On August 28, 1963, African Americans and other Americans of goodwill, all amounting to around 250, 000 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial (Hayden, 2015). Over 3000 press members covered the famed event in which Martin Luther King Jnr. Issued the famous “I Have a Dream” speech
Consequences
After the King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the crowd became agitatedly stimulated for the fight for freedom and the end of racial discrimination against African Americans. The March on Washington led to immediate ramifications. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, thereby guaranteeing African Americans equal voting rights, boosting school desegregation, and outlawing discrimination in theatres, interstate commerce, and restaurants (Jones, 2013). During The March on Washington, King said that he dreamed of American whereby people’s skin color would not be the basis of their judgment but their character (Younge, 2013, p.33). King’s dream came to pass as the United States saw its first African American president in 2008. According to Hayden (2015), President Obama’s rise to the presidency shows the culmination of King’s dream and the core objectives of The March on Washington. A Black American, Obama was not judged by his color but the character or rather his policies for the Americans.
Conclusion
Indeed, the March on Washington allowed the African American community to agitate for freedom and desegregation. Racial discrimination and lack of freedom informed the course of the protest. Its fruits are evident today as the government enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1963 with President Obama rise fulfilling the King’s dream for character-driven evaluation rather than color-based judgment.
References
Hayden, T. (2015). Long sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama . Routledge.
Jones, W. P. (2013). The March on Washington: Jobs, freedom, and the forgotten history of civil rights . WW Norton & Company.
Younge, G. (2013). The Speech: The story behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Os Dream . Haymarket Books.
