March on Washington Remembered on August 28

By Deandrea Hamilton

Editor

September 2, 2023 – 60 Years ago on Monday August 28, the late Martin Luther King Jr delivered one of his most compelling speeches.

“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. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day “every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

There were many reflecting on the March on Washington, which was driven by a need for jobs and opportunities for black people in America, it was a call for an end to racism.

That March in 1963 was where the then, 34-year-old, civil rights leader preached ‘I Have a Dream…’ as many as 300,000 people, of which 80 percent were black congregated between the Lincoln memorial and the Washington Monument in Washington DC.

On that day, Rev Dr. King stirred his nation and the world around it with words so layered with faith, they were bound to come true.  Results were many, including the passage a year later of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

You relive the moments captured on that day and it is impossible not to wonder… have we been so blessed by the fruits of these fights for dignity and equality that we no longer burn or have that that zeal to see more justice served?

Because truth be told, we all know, that the work which King and others championed sixty years ago, remains a work that is not yet done.