WaPo: “Sixty years ago, they converged on the National Mall from across the country,to demand their nation fulfill the promise of the American Dream for all.
Some arrived with intent, others by happenstance. They were college students and college dropouts, activists who organized in city offices and in sharecropping shacks, workers on Capitol Hill and at the post office.
An estimated 250,000 Americans in all arrived by bus, by train and on foot to participate in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Together, they forged a cornerstone moment in American history and in the struggle for African American equality that enslavement and Jim Crow had long denied.
The March on Washington’s 60th anniversary arrives Monday, amid a rise in white nationalism, after George Floyd’s murder reignited protests and conversations about racism and inequality, and as the United States bitterly debates the teaching of the nation’s past.
“The only way you break the cycle,” said marcher Patricia Tyson, then 15 and now 75, “is to understand your history and talk about it.”
The Washington Post spent this summer interviewing participants in the March on Washington, including young civil rights soldiers, curious bystanders and behind-the-scenes leaders,as well asvoices from ensuing generations. Together, their quotes below capture the story of Aug. 28, 1963, beyond Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech, and what that day means now.”