March On Washington Documentary

The March On Washington was a monumental event in American History. It occured in August of 1963, when about 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington D.C.

Today in class we got the opportunity to watch a documentary on this event. Narrated by Denzel Washington, the documentary covered topics such as how the march happened, why, and all of the parties that were involved in making it happen. The March took place during a time of tense race relations in the United States, the Civil Rights Era. This Era was when there were two distinct sides to the argument over race relations. On one side were the white men, who wanted to keep the African Americans and Whites segregated and on the other side you had the African Americans fighting for freedom and equality for all people.

This issue was supposed to be decided by the landmark case of Brown vs. The Board of Education in which the Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed the "separate but equal" principle.

The March On Washington was organized by Martin Luther King Jr., who had support from then POTUS John F. Kennedy. The March itself was monmental but another famous event occurred during the March. Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. The speech contained references to the country’s Founding Fathers and the Bible. Throughout the speech Martin Luther King used universal themes to depict the struggles of African Americans, before closing with an improvised riff on his dreams of equality.

MORE

https://www.history.com/topics/i-have-a-dream-speech

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington