March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

On August 28, 1963, one-hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, approximately 200,000 to 250,000 people arrived in Washington, D.C., and peacefully marched down Constitution and Independence Avenues to the Lincoln Memorial, to rectify, in the words of A. Philip Randolph, “old grievances and to help resolve an American crisis.” Precipitating factors included the subjugation of African Americans to Jim Crow segregation and laws in practically every sector in society, a disproportionate level of high unemployment and unequal wages, and other forms of legal, economic, and social inequality.

A. Philip Randolph,…at the Lincoln Memorial, during 1963 March on Washington. United Press International, 1963. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. Prints & Photographs Division

The marchers, representing rural and urban areas from every corner of the nation, arrived by train, plane, bus, and car. Newspapers reported that the marchers were young and old; black, white, and brown. They were sharecroppers and socialites. The marchers were prayerful, jubilant, and tearful; embraced each other throughout the day and sang traditional spirituals such as “Oh Freedom,” “Ain’t Gon’ Let Nobody Turn Me Round,” and “We Shall Overcome.” These supporters of the March were in Washington to introduce ten levels of demands, of which the first was the demand for comprehensive and effective civil rights legislation that would guarantee all Americans: (1) access to all public accommodations, (2) decent housing, (3) adequate and integrated education, and (4) the right to vote. Other demands included: withholding Federal funds from all programs in which discrimination exists; a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers –black and white—on meaningful and dignified jobs with decent wages.

Signs Carried By Many Marchers, during the March on Washington, 1963. Mary S. Trikosko, photographer, [Aug. 28, 1963]. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection. Prints & Photographs Division

The six primary organizers and organizations for the March were: (1) James Farmer, National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), (2) Reverend Martin Luther King, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), (3) John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), (4) A. Philip Randolph, President of the Negro American Labor Organization, (5) Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and (6) Whitney Young, Executive Director of the Urban League. These leaders of prominent civil rights organizations came together to commemorate the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and to call attention to the atrocities African Americans were still experiencing. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King gave his iconic “I Have a Dream”External speech on this occasion.

Copy of Photograph Showing Left to Right: John Lewis, Whitney Young, A. Philip Randolph, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer, and Roy Wilkins. Bill Sauro, photographer, July 4, 1963. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection. Prints & Photographs Division.

The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom drew attention to the systemic racism and the discrimination which African Americans still experience in education, housing, and jobs. It also called for Federal legislation to guarantee the right to vote for all Americans.

View of the Huge Crowd from the Lincoln Memorial…during the March on Washington. Warren K. Leffler, photographer, [Aug. 28, 1963]. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection. Prints & Photographs Division

Learn More

  • Explore the Rosa Parks Papers to discover additional primary sources about the March on Washington. For example, in a Subject File folder on the March, read the Organizing Manual and other materials created by the organizers.
  • Listen to A. Philip Randolph, the organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at the National Press Club two days before the March, where he explains the reasons for the March on Washington (listen to 05.00-14.09), how it serves as a model against racial bias, what it will achieve in motivating people to do something about the problem of abolishing racial violence in America, and its goal to “highlight the idea of the struggle of Negroes in America to achieve the transition from second class citizenship, to first class citizenship,” and…“bring world pressure upon the United States of America to step up the struggle to wipe out race bias.”
  • Read Protests That Changed America: The March on Washington to review selected reasons the March on Washington is considered “the most significant protest for social justice in the nation.”
  • Experience the March on Washington through images found in the collections of the Library’s Prints & Photographs Division. Selections are included in the online exhibit, A Day Like No Other: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.
  • Explore the history and lyrics of the song “We Shall Overcome.” Read “Tracing the Long Journey of “We Shall Overcome”.
  • Search on the term civil rights leaders in Today in History to read more about the lives of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, James Baldwin, Booker T. Washington, and Mary Church Terrell.
  • Explore the Civil Rights History Project. Included are interviews of several people who participated in the March on Washington as well as many other aspects of the Civil Rights movement to obtain justice, freedom and equality for African Americans. This collection seeks to record and make widely accessible interviews with people who participated in the struggles.

Picketing for Suffrage

Ten suffragists were arrested on August 28, 1917, as they picketed the White House. The protesters were there in an effort to pressure President Woodrow Wilson to support the proposed “Anthony amendment” to the Constitution that would guarantee women the right to vote. Daily picketing began on January 10, 1917. During that year, more than 1,000 women from across the country joined the picket line outside the White House. Between June and November, 218 protesters from 26 states were arrested and charged with “obstructing sidewalk traffic.” Of those arrested, 97 spent time in either the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia or in the District of Columbia jail. Initially, protesters stood silently, holding placards inscribed with relatively tame messages such as “Mr. President, what will you do for Woman Suffrage?” and “How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?” President Wilson maintained decorum, greeting the protesters with a tip of the hat as he rode, his wife at his side, through the White House gates.

The First Picket Line-College Day in the picket line. Feb. 1917. Women’s Suffrage: Pictures of Suffragists and Their Activities. Prints & Photographs Division

By late spring, the picketers brandished more provocative placards. They took advantage of the United States’ April 6 entry into the war in Europe to press their case. Bystanders erupted in violence on June 20, when picketers met Russian envoys with signs that proclaimed the United States a democracy in name only.

The White House protest reflected a rift between the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), led by Carrie Chapman Catt, and the more confrontational National Woman’s Party, led by former NAWSA member Alice Paul.

Having spent time in a British jail for her participation in suffrage protests in England, Paul was no stranger to confrontation or its potential value to a political movement. In “Alice Paul Talks,” she describes her experience during a hunger strike, a tactic she later employed at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia:

Alice Paul, full-length portrait…. Sept. 3, 1920. Women’s Suffrage: Pictures of Suffragists and Their Activities. Prints & Photographs Division

I resorted to the hunger strike method twice…When the forcible feeding was ordered I was taken from my bed, carried to another room and forced into a chair, bound with sheets and sat upon bodily by a fat murderer, whose duty it was to keep me still. Then the prison doctor, assisted by two woman attendants, placed a rubber tube up my nostrils and pumped liquid food through it into the stomach. Twice a day for a month, from November 1 to December 1, this was done.

“Alice Paul Talks”. Philadelphia Tribune, January 1910. Scrapbooks of Elizabeth Smith Miller and Anne Fitzhugh Miller. Scrapbook 8. Part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection. Rare Book & Special Collections Division

Influenced in part by the publicity generated by the White House pickets and subsequent arrests and forced feedings of women protesters, President Wilson lent his support to the suffrage amendment in January 1918. The amendment was approved by Congress shortly thereafter. Women achieved the right to vote with the August 18, 1920, ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which is commemorated by Women’s Equality Day.

Learn More

  • The Library’s exhibit Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote celebrates the efforts of those who participated in the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and who continued fighting until the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote became a reality over 70 years later.
  • Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman’s Party includes photographs that document the National Woman’s Party (NWP) push for ratification of the 19th Amendment as well as its later campaign for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Included are a timeline of key events in the history of the NWP as well as essays on major figures of the Party and tactics and techniques used during their suffrage campaign.
  • Search Chronicling America, a collection of historic American newspapers, to follow the women’s suffrage movement and the activities of those who led the campaign to secure the right to vote for women. Start with the Topics in Chronicling America features on Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony, and the Nineteenth Amendment.
  • View One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage: An Overview to learn about key events in the history of the women’s suffrage movement. This timeline is referenced in the “Related Resources” section of Women’s Suffrage: Pictures of Suffragists and Their Activities.
  • Read documents related to the women’s suffrage movement in the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection. This collection consists of books and pamphlets documenting the suffrage campaign. The bulk of the collection is derived from the library of Carrie Chapman Catt, president of NAWSA from 1900 to 1904 and again from 1915 to 1920. She donated the collection to the Library of Congress in 1938.
  • View the American Women Series of research guides to learn about the extensive collections of materials found throughout the Library. Each guide focuses on the resources available to study women’s history and culture through a subject or format approach as provided by the different reading rooms at the Library.
  • Scrapbooks of Elizabeth Smith Miller and Anne Fitzhugh Miller, part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, document the activities of the Geneva (NY) Political Equality Club, founded in 1897 by Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter Anne Fitzhugh Miller, as well as efforts at the state, national, and international levels to win the vote for women.
  • Search Today in History on the term Seneca Falls to learn more about that landmark 1848 convention on women’s rights. Other Today in History features on woman’s suffrage include the 1854 Ohio Woman’s Rights Convention, the 1869 decision by the Wyoming Territory to grant women the right to vote, the 1884 address by Susan B. Anthony to the House Judiciary Committee, and the 1885 birth of Alice Paul.
  • Explore resources provided on the Teachers Page related to women’s suffrage and history such as the Women’s Suffrage primary source set and the lesson plans on Women’s History.