Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom

Background

The demonstration was planned to mark the third anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954), a landmark Supreme Court decision ruling that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The event organizers urged the government to implement that decision, as the desegregation process was being obstructed in much of the Southern United States at local and state levels.

The march was organized by A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and Ella Baker. It was supported by the NAACP and the recently founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (D-NY) had asked the planners to avoid embarrassing the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, and they organized the event as a prayer commemoration.

Demonstration

The three-hour demonstration was held in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall. Mahalia Jackson and Harry Belafonte participated in the event. Paul Robeson and his wife Eslanda attended, but were largely ignored. Among the speakers were Wilkins, Mordecai Johnson, and King. King was the last speaker, and it was the first time that he addressed a national audience. He identified restoration and enforcement of voting rights for blacks as an important part of the civil rights struggle. About 25,000 demonstrators attended the event to pray and voice their opinion. At the time, the event was the largest demonstration ever organized for civil rights.

"Give Us the Ballot"

Main article: Give Us the Ballot

King's speech is referred to as Give Us the Ballot, as he repeated this demand as a litany, followed by a listing of changes that would result in African Americans regaining voting rights:

Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law ...

Give us the ballot and we will fill our legislative halls with men of good will ...

Give us the ballot and we will place judges on the benches of the South who will do justly and love mercy ...

Give us the ballot and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court's decision of May 17, 1954.}}

It is one of King's major speeches.

Results

With this speech, King established himself as the "No. 1 leader of 16 million Negroes," according to James L. Hicks, of the Amsterdam News). His call for the ballot eventually helped inspire such events as the Selma Voting Rights Movement, its related Selma to Montgomery March, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The organizers gained experience, and the march laid the foundation for additional, larger Civil Rights Movement demonstrations in Washington.

References

References

1. Civil Rights Digital Library. "Prayer Pilgrimage for freedom, Washington, D.C.".
2. The Martin Luther King Jr. Encyclopedia. "Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom".
3. Martin Duberman. (1988). "Paul Robeson". Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.
4. [http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2008/03/31/in_depth_us/timeline3982827_0_content.shtml CBS: May 17, 1957]
5. Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. "Prayer Pilgrimage to DC for Civil Rights".
6. David J. Garrow. (January 19, 2009). "An Unfinished Dream". [[Newsweek]].
7. [https://stanford.edu/group/King/publications/papers/vol4/570517.004-Give_Us_the_Ballot.htm "Give Us the Ballot" Speech] {{webarchive. link. (2008-07-24 , ''Martin Luther King Papers, Vol. 4,'' Stanford University)
8. The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. "Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom (1957)".
9. Mervyn A. Warren. (2001). "King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.". InterVarsity Press, 2001.