That rally four decades ago, attended by 250,000, registered a watershed in the civil rights movement. It followed the victorious battle to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, during which the police arrested thousands of young Blacks. The 1963 march was followed by coordinated protests against government-backed racial discrimination throughout the South, forcing Washington to pass the Civil Rights Act the next year and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

In contrast, the theme of this year’s anniversary rally was to get out the vote for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 to defeat U.S. president George Bush. Democratic Party leader Jesse Jackson led the crowd in chanting, “Bush no more, in 2004.” At a teach-in preceding the rally, Jackson emphasized “we must have one candidate in 2004.” In a reference to the campaign of Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader in the 2000 vote, Jackson said “we lost the election because of candidates who ran for good causes.”

At planning meetings here in the final weeks leading up to the rally, organizers stressed that the focus of the event would be to launch a 15-month voter registration drive to sign up a million new voters. “The press will judge the success of the march by the turn out on Saturday,” said Walter Fauntroy, former D.C. delegate to the House of Representatives. “The turnout we are looking for are the million new voters who will go to the polls next November.”

Participants in the rally were mostly Blacks and came mainly from the southeastern part of the country. About 8,000 in all took part. Many of those who had joined the march in 1963 or who were involved in protests against the war in Vietnam expressed concern at the small turnout for the rally. Aaron Harding, 58, was a teenager when he stood among the participants in the 1963 rally. “The way things are going with this administration there should be at least as many people as were here in 1963,” he said.

Lamar Stockton, 21, from Roanoke, Virginia, however, saw it differently. “A lot of the people who were here in 1963 are saying there should be more people,” he stated. “We all want that, but this is our beginning. How many people did they have when they first started? And while we are dealing with many of the same issues, it is different and not so clear today.” Asked his opinion about the emphasis on voter registration, Stockton replied, “Everybody should vote, but right now I don’t see any candidate seriously addressing our issues today.”

About 200, mostly students who are Black, marched to the rally from Howard University. Their involvement was part of a weekend conference organized by the group By Any Means Necessary. BAMN was one of the groups that organized a march of tens of thousands in April in defense of affirmative action programs at the University of Michigan. A contingent of about 400 organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force was loudly cheered when it entered the Lincoln Memorial grounds.

Several Democratic Party politicians attended the rally. Among them were presidential contenders Howard Dean, Carol Moseley Braun, and Alfred Sharpton.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home