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Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. — Photo by Luckiewiki (CC BY-SA 4.0)
It has been 60 years since Martin Luther King Jr. led the march on Washington, a pivotal event in the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement.
The 1963 march brought more than 250,000 people to the nation’s capital to push for an end to discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Many credit the show of strength with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Today, tens of thousands of people, gathering at the Lincoln Memorial will be joined by Martin Luther King III, along with his wife, Arndrea Waters King, and their 15-year-old daughter, Yolanda, keeping the tradition alive, according to the Associated Press.
“We are like any other family, in the sense that we want to teach our daughter about this moment in history,” Arndrea said. “And then we also try to connect it with movements or people that are doing things in the present.”
While the march is a commemoration of Reverand King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the rally’s leaders say they plan not a commemoration, but a reassertion of the demands made at the Memorial in 1963.
“It feels like we’ve gone backward,” King’s eldest son, Martin Luther King III, said before the rally, reports the Washington Post.
“Dad talked about eradicating the triple evils of poverty, racism and violence. … Just about any problem that we are faced with in our nation falls under one of those categories,” he said.
“We have to be more vigilant,” he said. “We have to be more engaged, we have to be more — in fact we are — more determined than ever to actually address these great issues.”
The Kings are expected to speak near the spot where Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963.
And Andrew Young Jr., one of the last living Civil Rights leaders of his generation, is also scheduled to speak. Young is now 91 years old. On that day in 1963, he was an aide to King and stood at the foot of the Memorial steps as he spoke.
Martin Luther King Jr. – I Have A Dream Speech on Aug. 28, 1963
Source- David Erickson. Wikimedia.org (CC BY 2.0)
The White House said President Biden and Vice President Harris will meet with members of the King family and community leaders Monday to mark the actual anniversary date.
The rally will include many young people who traveled from around the country, Reuters is reporting. Chanelle Johnson, vice chair of the National Council of Negro Women’s Youth and Collegiate Affairs, said involving the younger generation was important.
“Learning is seeing all the things that some of the older generations went through to get to this point,” Johnson said. “They said it back then, and they’re saying it now: the fight is not over after today or after this march.”
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