Free at Last; Free at Last!
The civil rights movement was engaged on many fronts in the early 1960’s, often invoking non-violent, civil disobedience as a tactic against repressive white authority. But though it was increasngly effective in bringing media attention to the cause of equal justice, its leadership was searching for a way to more dramatically represent the campaign against outright segregation in the south and against de facto segregation in the north. Each of six major civil rights organizations all possessed charismatic leaders. But often their tactics conflicted, complicating the coordination of a single major event that would garner the needed national attention.
Though he had not actually led a march in 1941, A. Philip Randolph’s idea for the Negro March had produced results. With the extraordinary support of the Kennedy administration, Randolph, with the help of veteran organizer Bayard Rustin, was able to bring together civil rights leaders as diverse as Roy Wilkins, the traditional leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and James Farmer, the more radical director of the Congress on Racial Equality to plan a Washington based event. Randolph even attempted to unify the disparate interests by revisiting the idea of a massive federal public works program, not dissimilar to the one Jacob Coxey proposed in 1894.
At the same time, Martin Luther King, famous for his roles in Selma, Memphis and Atlanta, had already begun to talk about a Washington event when Randolph approached him early in 1963. As part of the Big Six that met with Kennedy in August, King insisted on a demand oriented approach to a massive demonstration on the Washington Mall. Kennedy made available local and federal officials to ensure the March was peaceful. Organizers were careful to take total control of the event down to being resposnible for all signs and placards, and for exluding radical groups from any integral involvement. The ceremony in front of the Lincoln Memorial was particularly well organized. King's own “I Have a Dream” speech on from the Lincoln Memorial to the over 250,000 marchers, is the best remembered of ten speeches given that day. King had abandoned his prepared remarks that were more inflammatory and gave a soaring speech infused with religion and history. The 1963 March paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, though historians also credit Lyndon Johnson, then the President, as siezing the moment made possible by the March and skillfully navigating the legislation through the Congress.