Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the crowd at the 1963 March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., “I have a dream.”
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Martin Luther King III, along with his wife Andrea Waters King and 15-year-old daughter Yolanda, created a series of traditions for this period.
Each August, they rewatch Martin Luther King Jr.’s impassioned speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. They see March anniversary as an educational moment, even if the civil rights icon’s legacy is closer to the King than most other families.
“We are like any other family in that we want to teach our daughter about this moment in history,” said Andrea. “And we’re trying to connect that to movements and people that are working now.”
This year, the Kings are expected to join tens of thousands of spectators gathering at the Lincoln Memorial in the capital on Saturday to mark the 60th anniversary of the late pastor’s “I have a dream” speech.
The event is convened by the King’s Drum Major Institute and the National Action Network. 250,000 people attended in 1963 when dozens of black civil rights leaders and a coalition of multi-racial, interreligious allies participated in what is considered one of the largest and most significant racial justice and equality demonstrations in U.S. history. rally the participants in the same place where the participants gathered. .
On Friday, the late civil rights icon Martin Luther King III and his sister Bernice King each visited their father’s memorial in Washington.
“I see men still standing in positions of power and saying, ‘We still have to get this right,'” Bernice said, looking up at the granite statue.
The original march, with their father at the center, helped plow the soil for passage of the federal Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s.
The organizers of this year’s commemoration are particularly concerned about the erosion of voting rights across the country, the recent Supreme Court strikeout of affirmative action on college admissions and abortion rights, and the threat of As it builds up, it wants to recapture the energy of the first March on Washington. Political violence and hatred against people of color, Jews, and the LGBTQ community.
“What we do know is that if people stand up, they can make a difference,” Martin Luther King III told the Associated Press in an interview earlier Saturday. “This is not a traditional memorial service. This is just a rededication.”
The event will begin at 8:00 AM ET with pre-program speeches and performances. The main program begins at 11:00 a.m. ET, followed by a march through the streets of Washington to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
Featured speakers include Ambassador Andrew Young, a close advisor to the King, who helped organize the first march and later served as Member of Parliament, Ambassador to the United Nations and Mayor of Atlanta. Leaders from the NAACP and the National Cities League will also speak.
Several leaders of the groups organizing the march met Friday with Civil Rights Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke to discuss a wide range of issues including voting rights, police and redlining.
Saturday’s rally heralds the actual anniversary of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to meet with organizers of the 1963 rally on Monday to celebrate the March anniversary. All of King’s children have been invited to meet with Biden, White House officials said.
For Reverend Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, keeping the Washington Day march fulfills a promise he made to the late King patriarch Coretta Scott King. Twenty-three years ago, she introduced Sharpton and Martin Luther King III at the 37th Anniversary March and urged them to continue their legacy.
“It never occurred to me that 23 years later Martin and I would be marching with Andrea and there would be less[civil rights protection]than in 2000,” Sharpton said.
“We are fulfilling the mandate given to us by Mrs. King,” he said. “We have to march saying there is no going back, we have to go forward.”
After Saturday’s march, Sharpton said he plans to lead a voting rights tour in the fall in states that are trying to build barriers to the 2024 presidential election. He also plans to meet with leading black entrepreneurs to set up a foundation to fund the fight against conservative attacks on diversity and inclusion efforts.
Bernice King said he sympathized with those exhausted by the ongoing fight to preserve civil rights. But, she says, in addition to her father’s famous speech, her mother’s words also need to be remembered.
Bernice, CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, founded by her mother after the 1968 assassination of a civil rights icon, said: My mother said, the struggle is a never-ending process.”
“Freedom can never really be won. Every generation wins and wins freedom. Vigilance is the answer,” she said. “We must always remember that it is difficult and dark now, but the dawn will come.”
Her father’s March on Washington remarks echoed through decades of push and pull for civil rights and human rights progress. But there were also dark moments after his speech.
Two weeks later, in 1963, four black girls were murdered in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, and the next year, three civil rights activists were kidnapped and murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Ta. This tragedy prompted his passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
and the suffrage march from Montgomery to Selma, Alabama, later known as “Bloody Sunday,” in which marchers were brutally beaten while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, leading Congress to vote in 1965. forced to adopt the Voting Rights Act.
“Unfortunately, we live in a time when there are younger generations who believe that my father’s generation and the generation that followed did not do enough,” Bernice King said. “And I want them to understand, you are profiting and this is how you are profiting.”
“We cannot give up, because there are moments when change comes. We must celebrate our small victories. ‘ added.