Democracy Now! is an independent, daily global news hour anchored by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. We air live weekdays 8-9AM ET and rebroadcast throughout the day on nearly 1,400 TV & radio stations in 43 countries. Here we post excerpts from our interviews and key moments from our daily show.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1963. Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech advocating racial harmony during the march. The event was organized by a coalition of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations. The event is credited with pushing lawmakers to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965).
Over the years, Democracy Now! has interviewed key civil rights leaders, scholars, artists and journalists about the historic event, the civil rights movement, and the challenges that remain today.
Civil rights activist Gloria Richardson only got out the word “hello” before the microphone was taken away from her at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. We ask her what she would have said.
Click here to watch the full 45-minute interview with Gloria Richardson on Democracy Now! today.
Watch: 50 Years Later, the Untold History of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s Most Famous Speech.
More than a quarter-million people came to the nation’s capital on August 28, 1963, to protest discrimination, joblessness and economic inequality faced by African Americans. Many now consider the march to be a key turning point in the civil rights movement. In a 45-minute interview, Democracy Now! explores the largely untold history behind the march and how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, like his own political legacy, remains widely misunderstood.
“I think today, the way the speech and the march are understood is wrapped in the flag, and seen as one more example of American genius, when in fact it was a mass, multiracial, dissident act,” says Gary Younge, author of “The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream.” “The powers that be really did not want this [march] to happen. The march was policed like a military operation.” We also speak to historian William P. Jones, author of “The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights.” “It really had a very profound effect on shifting the national conversation, even within the civil rights movement itself, toward a major focus on the connections between racial equality and economic justice,” Jones says.
