A timely excerpt from the official program for the 1963 March on Washington: “It will be orderly, but not subservient. It will be proud, but not arrogant. It will be non-violent, but not timid. It will be unified in purposes and behavior, not splintered into groups and individual competitors. It will be outspoken, but not raucous…when a whole people speaks to its government, the dialogue and the action must be on a level reflecting the worth of that people and the responsibility of that government.”
Signed by the heads of ten organizations who called for march discipline, including Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, John Lewis for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Roy Wilkins for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Whitney Young for the National Urban League, Rabbi Joachim Prinz for the American Jewish Congress, and Walter Reuther for the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America.
* * *
Screenshot from student march along Kellogg Boulevard in Saint Paul, Minnesota, January 2026.
More Motley Peg
