Assignment: The Civil Rights Movement: Discussion of Race & Power
Ponder how the movements led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez in the Central Valley of California influence how you live today. After viewing the montage of the 1963 civil rights march in the reading below what, in your mind, have we as a nation overcome? In what areas do we still have work to do, and what evidence of this have you experienced in your own life or in the life of someone you know?
What similarities and differences do you see between the civil rights movement and the labor movement led by Cesar Chavez? What was the influence of poverty on these movements? Give two specific examples that show the influence of poverty.
Singing: "We Shall Overcome" Just 100 years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves, 200,000 people converge on the nation's capital to rally for civil rights. They come by train, they come by bus, and by air. They come from the north, the south, the east, and west. They come united in one cause: To urge Congress to pass a civil rights bill to end forever the blight of racial inequity. This great throng with a cause gathers on the mall that stretches from the Washington Monument to the capital. From the break of dawn they filter into the city.
By 9:30 it is estimated that 40,000 have assembled. But it's more like a Sunday outing as they form into groups and discuss the day quietly. They are scheduled to move to the Lincoln Memorial at noon to hear the top leaders of the movement. Those leaders at the moment are conferring on Capitol Hill with members of Congress pointing up the aims of the rally.
By 11:30, there are more than 200,000 thronging the mall, a crowd that is bigger than the most optimistic forecasts. Now there is a growing animation as it seems as if the demonstrators are finding strength in each other and discovered their cause was a common bond.
The crowd becomes impatient to get started and they moved toward the Lincoln Memorial before the scheduled hour. They move with good humor, laugher, and song. Few realize that in a sense they are participants in an historical day. It would become part of the American scene that today's gathering is the largest in Washington history. The men who organize the rally walk with springing steps towards the speaker stand. On the left, Roy Wilkins with A Phillip Randolph. They have fought their fight all of their adult lives. In the van is Martin Luther King who has been jailed twelve times of racial issues. Others on hand include Walter Reuther, head of the auto workers.
Authorities were fearful of disorders and there are over 5,000 uniformed men on duty. They had little to do but keep dissident groups away from the rally. Arrests in Washington were below normal. Police attribute this to the fact that for the first time in thirty years you couldn't even buy a beer in Washington. The Civil Rights marchers needed no stimulants like that. They provided their own with songs that ranged from the sacred to the hillbilly. But with the one recurring theme: the case of twenty million Negros.
Singing: "We Shall Overcome"
The crowd assembled around the reflecting pool before the Lincoln Memorial occupies every inch of the lawn and under the trees. There's a great swell of tears to welcome Martin Luther King to the speaker's podium, a man who stands as a symbol of all they are fighting for. Later Dr. King and the other leaders are to go to the White House where the President said that everyone must be impressed with the demonstration of the throng's faith and confidence in our democratic form of government. However he warned there's a long fight ahead in Congress. The theme, the keynote, the thought uppermost in minds of all here today is best said forth by Dr. King. He sums up a day at the capitol we'll all remember. MLK: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self evident that all men re created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream." Washington, DC. 1963. Democracy speaks.