The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights

by William P. Jones

A brilliant history that goes beyond the dazzling “I Have a Dream” speech to explore the real significance of the massive march and the movement it inspired.

It was the final speech of a long day, August 28, 1963, when hundreds of thousands gathered on the Mall for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In a resounding cadence, Martin Luther King Jr. lifted the crowd when he told of his dream that all Americans would join together to realize the founding ideal of equality. The power of the speech created an enduring symbol of the march and the larger civil rights movement. King's speech still inspires us fifty years later, but its very power has also narrowed our understanding of the march. In this insightful history, William P. Jones restores the march to its full significance.

The opening speech of the day was delivered by the leader of the march, the great trade unionist A. Philip Randolph, who first called for a march on Washington in 1941 to press for equal opportunity in employment and the armed forces. To the crowd that stretched more than a mile before him, Randolph called for an end to segregation and a living wage for every American. Equal access to accommodations and services would mean little to people, white and black, who could not afford them. Randolph's egalitarian vision of economic and social citizenship is the strong thread running through the full history of the March on Washington Movement. It was a movement of sustained grassroots organizing, linked locally to women's groups, unions, and churches across the country. Jones's fresh, compelling history delivers a new understanding of this emblematic event and the broader civil rights movement it propelled.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Race, Labor, African American

320 pages, Hardcover

First published July 29, 2013

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

For Jobs And Freedom

This month, August, 2013, marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington of August 28, 1963, a watershed in the struggle for civil rights. Many cities will commemorate the March, which drew over 250,000 participants, including Washington, D.C. where the March took place. The March is best remembered for Martin Luther King's concluding "I Have a Dream" speech, which offered a vision of hope for brotherhood and peace in an interracial United States. There is much more to the March and its history that Dr. King's speech, deservedly famous as it is. Released to commemorate the 50th anniversary, William P. Jones' book, "The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights" (2013) studies the March and its history beyond a focus on the "I Have a Dream Speech". In so doing, it helps bring a new understanding to the speech, as well as increasing readers' understanding of the civil rights movement in many other ways. Jones,professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is a specialist in civil rights and labor history. His book shows how civil rights workers and unionists combined to make the March on Washington.

A. Phillip Randolph (1889 -- 1979) more than Dr. King, is the leading character in Jones' study. Randolph was the director of what became the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom. The 1963 March was not the first such even Randolph had planned. In 1941, the United States mobilized for the war effort. Randolph, already an established union leader and activist, became concerned that African American workers would not benefit from the economic growth resulting from the war due to pervasive employment discrimination. He mobilized grassroots organizations, including African American unions, church groups, and African American women's groups for a 10,000 person March on Washington to protest employment discrimination. President Roosevelt tried to disuade Randolph from the March, fearing in would divide the country. At virtually the last moment, Roosevelt signed an Executive Order forbidding discrimination in Federal contracting and establishing a Fair Employment Practices Commission. When he had done so, Randolph though his objectives had been achieved and called off the march. The decision disappointed many of the prospective participants.

Randolph's activities in connection with the 1941 march are at the heart of Jones' book, but there is much more. Jones examines Randolph's early unionizing and publishing activity which began in the years of WW I. Although his focus varied, Randolph had strong socialist tendencies and focused on jobs and economic opportunities for all in the United States, regardless of race. Thus, as early as 1919, Randolph urged black radicals "to form an alliance with white radicals to build a new society -- a society of equals, without class, race, caste or religious distinctions." Throughout his life, Randolph was strongly anti-communist.

Jones examines Randolph's skill at organization and networking which culminated first in the 1941 planned march. Although the march did not occur, Randolph transformed the organization into a "March on Washington Movement", supported again largely by African American unions and African American women's groups which monitored compliance with Roosevelt's Executive Order and fought discrimination against black people. Jones' history then shifts to Martin Luther King Jr. who becamse leader of the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955. Randolph supported the movement with funds, publicity, and staff, including Bayard Rustin who played the critical role in planning the 1963 March. From that point on, King's and Randolph's movements intertwined.

In the 1950's Randolph continued to work for social and economic justice for African American workers. When there was a partial falling out with national union leadership, and in light of President Kennedy's proposed civil rights legislation, Randolph again pursued the March on Washington he had planned in 1941. He enlisted Dr. King and various other civil rights and union organizations at various places on the political spectrum.

Jones wants to show a greater degree of militancy in the March than it frequently is accorded in standard accounts. Jobs, economic, justice, and social reorganization were at the forefront of all the speakers that proceeded Dr. King, including Randolph's own opening speech. Without the eloquence of King, Randolph proclaimed a message of economic justice: "The sanctity of private property takes second place to the sanctity of the human personality". The following speakers were more radical than Randolph. And Dr. King said, in the sometimes overlooked first line of his speech: "The Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity."

Jones' shows the many groups and positions in the civil rights struggle that coalesced during the March on Washington, with a strong focus on unionism and economic justice. He also spends substantial space examining the rising women's movement. The march and the civil rights movement were only possible because of the large efforts made since the beginning of the 20th Century in working towards economic justice and civil rights. The movement risked fracturing and factionalization many times, before and subsequent to the 1963 March.

This is a detailed, scholarly book. Jones' passion for his subject and his militance for economic justice comes through his pages and enhances the study. Even if the reader does not fully share Jones' perspective there is much to be learned and admired from the voice of economic radicalism. The writing style of the book sometimes requires effort to go through, and the book's organization sometimes is cumbersome and repetitive. That said this book offers an extraordinarily perceptive and provocative account of the 1963 March on Washington, its background and its goals. This book is an excellent choice for readers wanting to think about the March on Washington and its ongoing significance.

Robin Friedman

[David Lucander · Rating 4 out of 5]

This much-anticipated book delivers an excellent account of the long-term political networks that made the 1963 March on Washington to successful. Euchner's "People's History of the March on Washington" recounts that day's events in greater detail and authors like Berber cover the concept of marching on Washington quite well. Jones nicely adds to this discussion. A. Philip Randolph is rightly placed at the center of the story, and Jones skillfully puts the work of women like Anna Hedgeman and Pauli Murray into the narrative. I wish there was a little less on race in unions (that's covered many other places) and there was a chapter on the late 1950s marches on Washington that Randolph, MLK, and others had a part in.

[David Hollingsworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was weighing whether to give this a 4 or a 5, and decided to go with a 5 (I mean, obviously, considering you can see the score I gave it). This is a fantastic history of not just the March on Washington, but the link between the labor movement and civil rights movement, even from the very inception of the latter. The two have always been linked, particularly by black labor unionists who have a rich history of fighting for a combination of racial and economic justice.

This book starts with the life of A. Philip Randolph, the founder of the black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union and one of the early civil rights figures of the mid-20th Century. Randolph used his position as the head of one of the only black unions in the US to advocate for better treatment for both his workers and black people in the US as a whole. In the 1940s, this included threatening a march to Washington DC in order to protest the treatment of black people in job discrimination during World War 2. As we get closer to the March on Washington, Jones begins to expand who he covers, giving us a fuller view of many of the big players of the movement.

Jones does a great job of zooming in to not just the big players in the history of the March on Washington, but also everyday people. Plenty of black unionists and other people not mentioned in history books get due attention here. He also takes special care to give attention to the black women involved in this story, and not just the famous ones like Rosa Parks. Black women from the black labor movement have their work and ideas highlighted here, which is pretty cool to see.

In terms of writing style, Jones is not exactly a great storyteller, but neither is he a dry repeater of facts. I'd say his storytelling is adequate. He doesn't have the eye for drama or personalities that truly great historical writers have, but he does have a good enough sense of what different individuals and groups stood for, and what that meant for the historical moment he's talking about at any given time, that the writing is still interesting. You won't be electrified, but you won't be bored, either. And if you find the subject interesting the way I do, then you'll definitely be engaged.

Overall, this is a well-written book about a really important and interesting moment in US history, including both the lead up and aftermath of that moment. It's a great account of how the labor and civil rights movements were linked during what we think of the Civil Rights era. If you're interested in the topic, even just a little, you should read this book.

[Damian · Rating 4 out of 5]

What makes an effective political movement? The history elucidated in The March on Washington, suggests that a movement needs both effective networks and strong leadership.

The March on Washington was one of the largest political rallies in US history. On 28 August 1963, approximately 250,000 people descended on Washington D.C. to demand “jobs and freedom” for African Americans. Speeches were held throughout the day, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan sang songs of freedom and, to close, Martin Luther King Jr delivered his “I have a dream” speech. The march was widely praised for its non-violent political message and was considered the catalyst for the substantive legislative changes that followed, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

How could we replicate the civil rights movement’s success in the political struggles of today? On immigration, gun control, equality or economic reform?

On my reading there are two limbs to the movements success.

First, is the importance of networks. There was no single, organising body or creed to which the participants subscribed. The movement, including the march itself, was the product of thousands of small, local, civic organisations across the US working together. Churches (of multi faith), community clubs, labour unions, feminist groups, environmental activists and university groups all worked in concert. The majority of the participants attended the march because of their affiliation with these local groups – because neighbours, friends, co-workers and family were attending and had convinced them to attend. At the end of the day each marcher was asked “to carry the message of the match to my friends and neighbours back home and to arouse them to an equal commitment and an equal effort.” The message was sent far and wide through the broad network that had been built.

I suspect many of us consider that we live in the peak of a networked age. This is true in some respects. Never before has establishing and maintaining contact with acquaintances been easier. We can add and keep ‘friends’ literally with a single click of a button. Never before has it been easier to get a video or a political message in front of the eyeballs of millions people on YouTube, Reddit or Facebook. Most of our Facebook friend counts far exceed the number of people we would expect to show up at our birthday party.

However, the breadth of modern networking is deceptive and masks its fragility. Although modern networks can be large, many of the relationships within online social network are fickle.

Where a network can be established at low cost (ie. by clicking ‘add friend’ on a computer screen), what can be communicated in that relationship is limited to a similarly low value. Can you ask someone who you hardly know in real life to physically attend a political rally with you, boycott a product, donate cash to a cause, or even just to donate 10 minutes of their time to sit down and listen to a political case be put to them?

By contrast, the networks which brought together the March on Washington were thick. They were forged by attending a local church every Sunday with the same people from your local community, forged by weekly donations to that organisation, forged by asking that community for help to mind the kids while you go to work and forged by bringing a bowl of soup to your house when you were unwell. Building those relationships cost time, money and sacrifice which made each limb of the network robust. Where a relationship is robust, you can ask someone in it to suffer the real personal sacrifice which is necessary for political change: physical attendance at a protest, financial donation, boycotts and, in the case of the civil rights movement, grave personal danger. (Many of the civil rights leaders were assassinated, and many of its participants were murdered or beaten in the surrounding years.) You cannot ask people to incur those personal costs, unless your relationship with them is deeply rooted.

Today we are part of networks which are large, but not thick. During the civil rights era networks were much smaller, but each limb was deeply rooted. Which is more effective for political change? My suspicion is that working through deeply rooted, local networks is the most effective way to change someone’s behaviour. I will vote a certain way if my best friend has talked to me about it. I will donate money to a cause if my mother believes in it. I will volunteer my time to a charity if the other people in my church do likewise. We can use modern technology to organise and communicate within those groups, but small, robust, local organisations must be at their heart.

Second, the civil rights movement was successful because of its leadership.

Whilst tight, robust groups are needed at the bottom, strong leadership is needed at the top. During the March on Washington, each small group which participated in the march had representatives which liaised with larger umbrella organisations. This structure led up to the ‘Big Six’ organisations on which, through fate and circumstance over the preceding decade, it fell to lead the movement. They included an array of acronyms from the NAACP, NALC, SCLC, CORE and the SNSS. Each organisation had a leader, including Martin Luther King Jr of the SCL (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). Together they directed the movement.

The leadership had a number of roles. First, was to inspire. Second, was to articulate demands and negotiate.

Inspirational leadership is no doubt essential to any movement. It was most evident in the March on Washington in MLK’s “I have a dream”. But quantifying its effect or mimicking that inspiration, is near impossible. For those wanting to sustain a modern political movement, I suspect it is a case of “you’ll know it when you see it.” When you see it – foster it. For instance, Emma Gonzalez, the teenage gun control activist who has risen to prominence in the last few months, has “it”.

The other limb, articulation and negotiation, is easier to draw lessons from.

Articulation is essential because, even if a political leader has sympathy with your cause, if you aren’t able to tell them what you want, then there is little they can do for you. In the March on Washington, the movement leadership had agreed to a list of 10 specific policy demands they wanted from Washington, including civil rights legislation such as integration and the right to vote, school desegregation, an executive order banning discrimination in federal housing grants and federal employment act amendments. Those demands were recited to the cameras on the day and delivered, in person, to JFK in the White House by the Big Six leadership group. The leadership could discuss, point by point, what they wanted and could assess their success and progress against those articulated demands.

It is my impression (albeit without any deep understanding of these movements) that the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the more recent Women’s Marches, have lacked clear articulation of policy goals and have lacked the leadership to demand them. Perhaps if they are to be more effective in the future, they need to organise under a better defined leadership structure and articulate concrete policy objectives.

Anyone interested in understanding what it takes to bring about successful political change should read this history of the March on Washington.

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent one-volume history that puts the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in the larger context of Afro-American activism; especially within the labor movement. Voices long forgotten and personalities long ignored are revitalized and reanimated. The solidarity and fissures of the movement are presented clearly and unambiguously; as are the hopes and disappointments. It also places Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech at the March correctly as the culmination of a series of speeches in which he had sounded the "Dream" theme.

[Geoffrey Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this book is somewhat misleading, because it is much more than a history of the August 28, 1963 March on Washington. In order to provide context and explain the often complicated politics of the Negro/black/ Afro-American community, the author starts back in the days of FDR, the New Deal, and the rise to prominence of leaders such as A Philip Randolph. The actual march on Washington is described after 167 pages of detailed examination of complex issues. What were the relations between the civil rights movement and the labor unions in the United States? To what extent should the focus be given to issues that transcend race-- poverty, jobs, workers' rights? Or should the focus be on racism, discrimination in the workplace, and the presence of Jim Crow laws? Are protests more effective if they are interracial in nature, or a more exclusive expression of black nationalism? Why were women more often than not excluded from leadership roles despite their precarious situation in American society? Fifty-five years after the March on Washington these questions remain pertinent.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the March on Washington to be quite a dense book. It was difficult keeping track of all the different civil rights activists, organizations, and acronyms. This book definitely would have benefited from a personae dramatis. As someone not particularly interested in labour politics/history, I found most of the book to be extremely hard to get in to. I don't think the average person can just pick up this book and read it, as it can be quite dense and dry at times. There were a few chapters (namely the chapter on the 1963 March on Washington) that were engaging and kept me quite interested, and because of that, I learned a lot. I wish more of the book were like this, as I found portions inaccessible to the point where I was not retaining information.

[Roger Smitter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jones expends our understanding of what happened on a hot and humid August Sunday in Washington, DC in 1963. He takes us back to 1941 when A Phillip Randolph whose work with train workers (all were blacks) were the beginning point in the rise of the call for equal rules and opportunities sorceress decades. Most importantly, the book gives many pages to the work and leadership women provided in the rise of an organization that could advocate for equality. The book spends time on the King speech but we get a very engaging story.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book nicely dovetails with both the anniversary of the march on Washington as well as labor day weekend. Jones details the often forgotten role that A. Phillip Randolph and the black labor movements played in creating the thrust that helped make this historic event happen. Jones gives great detail of Randolph's first proposed march on Washington in 1941 that he used to force Roosevelt to desegregate the defense industry. From there he details the rise of black union power in the face of a segregated AFL-CIO, and how with the newly found power that black unions had from those struggles they were able to broaden the appeal. The entire march on Washington was organized by Randolph and Bayard Rustin to be about jobs and economic justice but after the assassination of Medgar Evars, Bull Connor's violent crackdown on African American protesters in Birmingham, and continued thwarting of voting registration efforts, the march expanded to be about both jobs AND freedom

[Paul Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An informative book. I never knew the movement started so many years before the 1963 march. I never knew who were the movers and shakers. I never knew MLK was such a latecomer. Like other folks, his was the only speech I heard and suspected this was what the movement was about. I learned a lot reading this book and congratulate the author for tackling such a momentous work. I was reading about James Madison and the Making of America at the same time; WOW, what an interesting pair to read at once.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

More survey than in depth analysis, at times this book reads more like a regurgitation of facts than a cohesive narrative. I liked that Dr. Jones went beyond MLK to put the March on Washington into a historical context, but the book lacks a strong central core to help ground the story and pull everything together. This book is a good addition to Civil Rights history, but for all but the most dedicated scholars, I’d recommend watching PBS’s one-hour documentary The March instead, which covers a lot of the same ground (albeit in much less detail). Quasi-recommended.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best single volume of history about the importance of August 28, 1963 March on Washington. Jones charts the events and efforts that led up to that powerful day in painstaking detail. The book shows that the quest for civil rights in terms of racial equality was also always about creating a sense of economic fairness in one of the wealthiest country's of all time. It is easily one of the best works of non fiction published in 2013 and for those wanting to know more about that historic day there is no better source to begin with than Jones' book.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For most Americans, the March on Washington centers almost completely on Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Yet, Dr King was the LAST speaker in a event-filled day, capping some six hours of speeches and music. Jones places this event squarely in the history of African American movements and re-focuses on the struggle to achieve equality in jobs, voting and housing. For me, this was a sad book because so much of what those thousands upon thousands of people marched and fought for remains unfinished.

[Ashley Southall · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's rare that I would review a book before getting to the halfway mark, but this is truly an excellent picture of the March on Washington as a radical movement. The historian language necessitates reading some passages more than once, but it's time well spent. Check out the author's article for Dissent mag. http://www.dissentmagazine.org/articl...

[Katrina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry, I know many people really liked this book but I just could not get into it. It is too textbook-ish for me. I liked that this book didn't just focus on Martin Luther King, Jr. but the greater historical context was too dry for me. I think there could have been a way to incorporate a central narrative into his list of facts that would have made this book more palatable for me. Like I said, a good text for Civil Rights scholars but not for you're average citizen.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely illuminating. I should probably be embarrassed to admit how little I actually knew about the Civil Rights Movement, its origins, and its goals, but I think Jones absolves readers of this and acknowledges that I'm not unique in my ignorance. What we think we know and what we learn in school is only a tiny sliver of the whole story. Obviously, it is extremely relevant at this point in history.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's easy to get lost in this book with all the acronyms, unions, and new names, but it is worth it to push through. Jones reminds the reader of the often forgotten (ignored?) economic struggled that was deeply connected to the Civil Rights Movement as well as the original March set in the 1940s. Excellent read.

[Kara Merry · Rating 4 out of 5]

very good and interesting. Great knowledgeable book