In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

52 A Report on the March onWashington Colored people streamed into Washington by every mode of transportation possible.* Old women with run-down shoes, old women well dressed, kids with the South written all over their faces. New York sent eight thousand by chartered bus and car. The most significant of all was the determination of the southern colored women and men. The NAACP and CIO had hoped to keep the crowd down—the CIO in particular —but they are through on the colored question. They were minor cogs on the platform . The NAACP is something to be watched and studied, for in their loose makeup is room for all types of action. Television systems were set up for full coverage. All policemen and National Guardsmen were on full duty. Washington was tense. After the singing of the National Anthem, the invocation, a wreath was laid at the Lincoln Memorial by James and Theresa Gordon, who had been in the Clay County riots in Tennessee.† Roy Wilkins cautioned the white American of the danger that exists in the Negro who has been trampled on and the possibility of waking up one morning with a black man superior to them. Three-fourths of the world is black. “Go home South, never despair, the universe is on our side. Keep pressing forward in every school, on the theater, on the sidewalk, on the job.” Powell‡ gave the usual rabble-rousing speech demanding work stoppage, boycott, and a new third party. Rev. Martin Luther King Finally Rev. Martin Luther King came and the hands went up like unto Gandhi. King spoke with the feeling of the crowd. He said only the judicial branch had spoken but the executive branch of Ike and Nixon was quiet. Both political parties have betrayed * Boggs is describing the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom that culminated with a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.The pilgrimage was led by Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and held on May 17, 1957, the third anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.The pilgrimage was designed to compel President Eisenhower and Congress to support civil rights reforms including the implementation of the Brown decision.This was the first major activity of the newly formed SCLC, and King’s speech was his first national address. —Ed. † African American brother and sister involved in a school desegregation effort in Clay, Kentucky, during the preceding September. Boggs incorrectly identifies the location as Clay, Tennessee; he likely was conflating the Kentucky case with a similar one in Clinton, Tennessee, that also took place during September 1956. —Ed. ‡The Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a local black community leader in Harlem, NewYork, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, civil rights activist, and politician. In 1957 he was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. —Ed. Ward.indb 52 12/21/10 9:27 AM A Report on the March on Washington 53 the cause. Now it is too late. Destiny is ticking out. We must be calm and positive. We shall have the victory and in it all America will gain. History will show that the quasi-liberal is through. There is but one side, the right side, and God is on that side. The crowd began to disperse after he spoke for he had given them the twentiethcentury Karl Marx. Here in America where the Bible is a household product, he used the Bible the same as Marx used capital. This is the crux: The Bible for the Negro is, in the United States, as of now, his best weapon. The CIO was not even mentioned. Moral principle is the issue; moral principle or the United States will perish. It is this which the leaders sense the masses will fight on. The southern people went home determined beyond the expectations of even King. No one in the South is big enough to stop this march of the people and no one can call it off. [ August 1,1957 ] Ward.indb 53 12/21/10 9:27 AM ...

Share