On the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, Washington saw another racial justice protest. People from across the US heard a clear message: If you want change, vote! DW's Carla Bleiker was there.
Image: DW/C. Bleiker
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March on Washington — in pictures
Thousands of people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., where Martin Luther King Jr. had delivered the historic "I have a dream" speech 57 years ago.
Image: DW/C. Bleiker
March to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
People gathered from across the country to commemorate the anniversary of the March on Washington. Crowds flooded the National Mall for a mass march marking the anniversary of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr's historic "I have a dream" speech on August 28, 1963.
Image: Picture-alliance/AP Photo/S. Walsh
Art depicting George Floyd
Incidents of police brutality against Black people and racial injustice was a recurring theme during the march. Friday's demonstration was dubbed "Get Your Knee Off Our Necks," in reference to George Floyd, who suffocated beneath the knee of a white officer in Minneapolis in May, igniting the most widespread civil unrest in the country in decades.
Image: Reuters/L. Millis
Huge crowds
Around 200,000 people attended the event. Alongside Martin Luther King III, the son of the legendary civil rights activist, speakers included Al Sharpton and Democrat candidate for vice president, Kamala Harris.
Image: Picture-alliance/AP Photo/S. Walsh
'We remain awake'
In his speech, Martin Luther King III said, "There is a knee upon the neck of democracy and our nation can only live so long without the oxygen of freedom."
Image: REUTERS
Al Sharpton addresses the crowd
"We didn't just come out here to have a show. Demonstration without legislation will not lead to change," said Reverend Al Sharpton while addressing the crowds.
Image: Reuters/T. Brenner
Coronavirus precautions
Thousands of marchers, among them many families with children, streamed towards the event from dawn, with COVID-19 masks mandatory. But planned temperature checks were abandoned due to long queues.
Image: picture-alliance/newscom/K. Cedeno
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In 1963, tens of thousands of Americans gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on a hot August day to demand social justice and racial equality. They listened to political and spiritual leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who shared his vision for the future of his country.
"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 are created equal,'" King said in his most famous speech. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
'White offenders are treated with humanity, Black people are not'
Vance Jay came to Washington from his home state of Wisconsin to "show solidarity," he told DW. "This is a chance for our kids to see how Black people come together and how we gather to affect real change."
Jay and his friends wore shirts emblazoned with "Black Lives Matter" on the front and "We're WI men" on the back. What upset him most about what happened in Kenosha, Jay said, is that the young white man who is charged with shooting and killing two people during protests Tuesday night "was able to just walk to the police and wasn't even stopped."
Vance Jay came to Washington from WisconsinImage: DW/C. Bleiker
That is something many participants are angry about.
"That moment [in Kenosha] fit in the trend how certain offenders are treated because of their skin color," Zakiya Glynn from New York said from her spot on the lawn close to where the steps to the Lincoln Memorial begin. "It shows the difference between offenders who are white, who are treated with humanity, and Black people, who are not."
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Dance breaks and cool showers
Not everyone who wanted to come to the march on Friday could make it. The National Action Network (NAN), the civil rights NGO that organized the event, canceled several busses from coronavirus hotspots that were supposed to drive protesters to Washington.
"Safety is our main priority," Tylik McMillan, NAN's Director of College and Youth and one of the head organizers, told DW earlier this week. Every person attending the march would have their temperature checked before being let into the area around the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool, and social distancing rules would be enforced.
A sign reminding people to respect social distancingImage: DW/C. Bleiker
The reality on Friday afternoon looked a bit different. The area from where protesters watched the speeches on large video screens at the bottom of the steps to the Lincoln Memorial was so crowded, it was sometimes hard to even take a few steps.
But almost everyone wore masks.
And there was still room for little outbursts of joy. When upbeat jazz music started playing after one speaker left the stage, a young woman spontaneously started dancing down the path next to the Reflecting Pool, and a young man walking past cheered her on.
Down the road from the Lincoln Memorial, a fire truck set up an impromptu fountain. You could hear the squeals of joy from children and adults alike before you saw them running through the cold mist, with water splashing up from the sidewalk — a welcome reprieve from the punishing DC heat.
A fire truck provides a cooling showerImage: DW/C. Bleiker
History in the making
The muggy weather didn't put a damper on the enthusiasm of speakers or audience at the march when it came to the event's main message: Go out to vote in this fall's presidential election. No matter who you talked to in the crowd, no one bought into the message from the Republican National Convention earlier this week: That no president since Abraham Lincoln has been better for the African American community than Donald Trump.
On the contrary: One protester carried a large Biden-Harris flag in support of the Democratic candidates for president and vice president, and several had badges on their shirts and bags reading "Vote Trump out."
One speech that made the significance of this November's vote particularly clear came from Reverend Jamal Bryant from Georgia.
"On November 3, no matter what you do, we will crawl to the polls," Bryant said in a booming voice addressing the Trump administration. "If you take away the mailbox, we are still going to crawl. You take away the [polling] stations from our communities, we are still going to crawl… Even if we find ourselves paralyzed and you force us to crawl, we are like butterflies … They crawl and then they fly."
Thousands of people around the Reflecting Pool cheered, jumping up and roaring "Yes!" It felt like another historic moment at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.
#BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement
The body of late civil rights icon and congressman John Lewis will lie in state at the US Capitol. But who, exactly, was Lewis? And which other figures played a divisive role in the US civil rights movement?
Image: Getty Images/Keystone
'Necessary trouble'
The image of civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis, who died on July 17, is projected onto the statue of Confederate Robert Lee in Richmond, Virginia. A champion of non-violent protest, he attended the 1963 March on Washington and played a key role in abolishing racial segregation. He famously declared: "Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/S. Helber
'A voteless people is a hopeless people'
Amelia Boynton Robinson was a civil rights pioneer who fought for voting rights for African Americans. She helped organize a 5-day civil rights march from the city of Selma to Montgomery in Alabama in March 1965. During the protest, Robinson and others were brutally beaten by state police. Images of what became known as Bloody Sunday went around the world.
Image: Getty Images/S. Lovekin
'The right man and the right place'
Thurgood Marshall, pictured here in 1957, was the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court. Announcing his pick, US President Lyndon B. Johnson declared it was "the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place." Marshall, who was born in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, successfully fought against the racial segregation of US schools and universities.
Rosa Parks made history, when on December 1, 1955, she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. Her subsequent arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King. The 385 days of protest proved effective when on November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling declaring segregated busses unconstitutional in Alabama and Montgomery.
Image: picture alliance/Everett Collection
'I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land'
Martin Luther King at Memphis' Lorraine Motel, on the day of his killing on April 4, 1968. One day earlier, King famously said: "I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land." Also pictured (to King's left): Civil rights activist Hosea Williams and Baptist minister Jesse Jackson, to his right, Ralph Abernathy.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo
Civil Rights Ambassador Young
Andrew Jackson Young was in Memphis, Tennessee, on the day of Martin Luther King’s murder. The politician, civil rights leader, and clergyman had joined King in leading the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1967, President-elect Jimmy Carter nominated Young as the US ambassador to the United Nations. In 1981, he was elected mayor of Atlanta.
Image: Getty Images/D. Oulds
'We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us'
Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X (left), rejected Martin Luther King’s notion of non-violent protest. He was portrayed by actor Denzel Washington (right) in Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic "Malcolm X." Once the African American leader of Nation of Islam, he later abandoned the organization, becoming one of its most fervent critics. He was assassinated on February 21, 1965.
'My faith in the Constitution is whole'
Barbara Jordan was the first woman and the first African American keynote speaker at a Democratic National Convention. In 1974, the attorney, legislator, and educator declared in the House of Representatives that "my faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total."
Image: Getty Images/Keystone/Hulton Archive
A jazz and civil rights icon
Ella Fitzgerald, born in a New York suburb in 1917, was not only a jazz but also a civil rights icon. Fitzgerald, who won 13 Grammys and sold some 40 million records, always insisted musicians touring with her be treated equally, regardless of their skin color. She was the first African American woman to perform at Los Angeles’ Mocambo night club after actress Marilyn Monroe publicly backed her.
Image: Getty Images/Keystone
Strong, black women
Novelist Alice Walker became involved in the US civil rights movement in the 1960s. She was just 17 when she joined the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Walker’s novels feature strong, black women. And her work The Color Purple won a Pulitzer Prize in 1983.
Image: Getty Images/H. Brace
An outspoken activist
Baptist minister Al Sharpton speaking at George Floyd’s funeral service. In 2004, Sharpton was a Democratic candidate for the presidential race. Two years later, in 2006, he led a protest march in honor of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old African American who had been shot dead by police. Al Sharpton is an outspoken and at times controversial activist.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Gonzalez
Kings of hope
US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visited a Washington homeless shelter in January 2017, where they helped finish a mural of Martin Luther King. Obama was the first-ever African American to be elected president of the United States.
