Program for the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom": Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A program for the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963. The program is printed in black ink on one sheet of white paper, folded to form four pages total.

The first (cover) page begins with the “Lincoln Memorial Program” listing the order of events and speakers, beginning with Marian Anderson singing the National Anthem and ending with Remarks by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Pledge” by A. Philip Randolph, and a Benediction by Dr. Benjamin E. Mays. At the bottom, printed in large, bold type is “WE SHALL OVERCOME.” The second (interior) page has a “Statement by the heads of the ten organizations calling for discipline in connection with the Washington March of August 28, 1963.” The third page has a numbered list of the ten demands of the march, from comprehensive civil rights legislation to a federal “Fair Employment Standards Act.” The final (back cover) page of the program is a map of the March route from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: August 28, 1963
• Created by: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, American, founded 1963
• Subject of: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., American, 1929 - 1968
• Subject of: John Lewis, American, 1940 - 2020
• Subject of: Roy Wilkins, American, 1901 - 1981
• Subject of: Mahalia Jackson, American, 1911 - 1972
• Subject of: Walter Reuther, American, 1907 - 1970
• Subject of: Eugene Carson Blake, American, 1906 - 1985
• Subject of: Dr. Joachim Prinz, German American, 1902 - 1988
• Type: programs
• Medium: ink on paper
• Dimensions: H x W: 8 9/16 × 10 15/16 in. (21.7 × 27.8 cm)
• Place used: Washington, District of Columbia, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Activism
• Topic: Civil Rights
• Topic: Communities
• Topic: Freedom
• Topic: Justice
• Topic: Social reform
• Topic: U.S. History, 1961-1969
• Object number: 2021.16.11
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: No known copyright restrictions Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.