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An Activist Explains the Conflicted Role of Women in the March on Washington
Dorothy Height became active in civil rights causes in the 1930s, working towards anti-lynching legislation, desegregation of the military, and other issues. In 1957 she was elected the president of the National Council of Negro Women, and was the [...]
A Civil Rights Organizer Condemns "Jane Crow"
Pauli Murray entered law school in 1941 with the "single-minded intention of destroying Jim Crow." Though on the frontlines of civil rights demonstrations and behind the scenes of many organizational meetings since the 1940s, Murray and other [...]
World War I Veterans March in Washington (with text supports)
After World War I, Congress passed a bill promising each military veteran of that war a cash bonus that would be paid in 1945. In the summer of 1932, facing unemployment and poverty because of the Great Depression, veterans began demanding that the [...]
I Have a Dream (Excerpt)
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech was delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the conclusion of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. Delivered in the rhetorical tradition of the [...]
John Lewis Tells America to "Wake Up"
John Lewis, the 23-year-old chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) drafted the speech excerpted below for the 1963 March on Washington. When copies of the speech were circulated in advance, march organizers, as well as [...]
Ten Thousand Women March for the Right to Vote
Suffrage activists staged a huge parade up Fifth Avenue in New York City on May 10, 1913. Over 10,000 women and men marched, and a crowd of over half a million lined the streets to watch. New Yorkers were inspired by women who had marched in protest [...]
Activists Invited to ACT UP LA Meeting
On October 11, 1987, about 200,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Protestors criticized the inadequate response of President Ronald Reagan’s administration to the AIDS crisis and called for [...]
Mahalia Jackson Remembers Chicago
Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972), the grandaughter of former slaves, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she learned to sing in her family's baptist church. In 1927, at the age of sixteen, Jackson migrated to Chicago where she found a [...]
A Feminist Draws Parallels Between African Americans' and Women's Rights
The March on Washington and other demonstrations finally brought Congress close to passing a sweeping civil rights bill in 1964. At the last moment, and to the surprise of many, "sex" was added to the clause that would prevent employment [...]
Booker T. Washington Recommends that African Americans "Cast Down Their Buckets"
In 1895, Booker T. Washington gave what later came to be known as the Atlanta Compromise speech before the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. His address was one of the most important and influential speeches in American history, [...]