Nearly 50 years after John Lewis stood among the “Big Six†civil rights leaders before throngs of mostly African-American demonstrators, gathered on the National Mall for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, he stood in the Capitol on Wednesday and declared the work of the movement unfinished.
At 23, Mr. Lewis was the newly elected president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the youngest speaker at the historic march, which took place on Aug. 28, 1963. Now, at 73, he is a Democratic congressman from Georgia and the last surviving speaker from the march.
“We have come a distance since that day,†Mr. Lewis said on Wednesday. “But many of the issues that gave rise to that march are still pressing needs in our society today: violence, poverty, hunger, long-term unemployment, homelessness, voting rights and the need to protect human dignity.â€
Congress is scheduled to be in recess on the anniversary of the march, which comes as President Obama is traveling the country to promote his economic agenda focused on job creation.
The crowd on the National Mall in 1963 swelled to about 250,000 people, who gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial to draw attention to economic inequality. It is most remembered as the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream†speech.
John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican House speaker, tied the march to centuries-old efforts to bring about racial equality, highlighting Frederick Douglass’s escape from slavery and advocacy for abolition, Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Alabama in 1955.
“This is the story of how a president, a slave, a seamstress and a minister locked arms across time to deliver us from oppression, a story that shakes us forward and shakes us free, a story with room enough for each of us to press on for some cause, some dream, bigger than ourselves,†Mr. Boehner said.
Remembering Dr. King’s call to act with “the fierce urgency of now,†Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic minority leader, noted that the march had propelled the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as broader social and economic progress. Over the next 50 years, African-Americans increased their presence in the House to 43 members from 5 and established the influential Congressional Black Caucus.
“We have kept moving forward,†Ms. Pelosi said. “Each step is a sign of progress, and we have a moral obligation to press on.â€
But Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, warned that the progress made during and since the civil rights movement was “under siege.â€
“Since the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down portions of the Voting Rights Act, states once again are free to erect barriers to discourage American citizens from exercising one of the most fundamental rights, the right to vote, without intimidation or obstruction,†he said, singling out efforts by Texas and other Southern states to tighten voting laws after the Supreme Court freed them in June from the requirement to obtain preclearance from the Justice Department.
Mr. Reid said he had directed Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to examine “these dangerous voter suppression efforts†â€" which he said unfairly targeted the poor, the elderly and minorities â€" and propose steps the Senate can take to protect voters.
“Those who value the progress started 50 years ago by the March on Washington should take this assault on freedom as seriously as you’ve taken anything,†he said.
Civil rights groups plan to observe the 50th anniversary with a march on Aug. 24 from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial, and another on Aug. 28 that will stop at the Justice and Labor Department buildings.
