> Civil Rights Movement> Events> March on Washington

The March on Washington, 1963
In the early 1960s, as black unemployment rates were rising and civil rights demonstrators around the country encountered police brutality, the idea for the March on Washington emerged. The march, as it would turn out, was a powerful forum that raised the consciousness of many Americans about the injustice faced by blacks. It was at the march that Martin Luther King made his most famous speech.

Photographs of the March on Washington
Take a visual tour of this historic day in which both blacks and whites marched together for civil rights. Look at pictures of the marchers and leaders that participated in this 1963 march.

Asa Philip Randolph
Black labor movement leader, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and later a key figure in the civil rights movement, Asa Philip Randolph believed that the key to black progress rested in the black working class. Thus, throughout most of his life he worked to help the black working class and sought to end discrimination.

The Civil Rights Movement
This article provides a detailed account of the march.