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Thousands expected Saturday for 60th anniversary of the March on Washington

By Ivy Lyons

The March on Washington will return to D.C. this weekend, honoring the 60th anniversary of the civil rights demonstration as it aims to continue the movement’s decades of work. Organizers expect tens of thousands of visitors to take part in this year’s march, happening Saturday, Aug. 26, at the Lincoln Memorial. Participants plan to gather at the memorial at 7 a.m. and the program will run until 1 p.m., which will then lead into a march through the streets of the nation’s capital. The marching portion is expected to last until around 3 p.m. The event, led this year by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and his wife, Andrea Waters King, will have some accommodations available for visitors participating in the March.

The National Park Service is asking anyone who expects to be in the area to plan ahead. United States Park Police also released a list of road closures for the event. For the latest road and traffic conditions, see WTOP’s traffic page or listen to updates every 10 minutes online or on the air at 103.5 FM. Download the free WTOP News app for Android and Apple phones to sign up for custom traffic and weather alerts.

‘Not a commemoration, but a continuation’

Event organizers describe the march as “not a commemoration, but a continuation” of the 1963 the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. “The unified march will be a collective response to the vitriol, rise in hate crimes, attacks on civil rights and protections and threats to democracy itself,” Ashley Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network’s Huddle and daughter of the Rev. Sharpton, said during a Monday meeting. “The time to speak with one voice is now.” The action network, which will lead roughly 100 groups in organizing the march, said it is bringing together groups focused on a range of civil rights issues across ages, genders and races. In doing so, Ashley said, the group could would work to shed light on work left to do and support a wide range of issues — even those seemingly disconnected from the coming March. “All roads lead to the nation’s capitol for the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington,” Ashley Sharpton said. The words echoed those included in the second and final organizing guidance for the March on Washington, calling for a redress of old problems and the resolution of an ongoing American crisis. “That crisis is born of the twin evils of racism and economic deprivation,” the march wrote, adding that they rob all people and especially harm Black people. “Despite this crisis, reactionary Republicans and Southern Democrats in Congress are still working to defeat effective civil rights legislation. They fight against the rights of all workers and minority groups,” the organizers said.

Current D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, then a 26-year-old Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee worker in Mississippi, became part of the staff that organized the March on Washington in 1963. “As I flew from New York to Washington, I could see that the march would be a success because as far as the eye could see, there were crowds,” Norton told The Associated Press. “We weren’t sure how big because there had never been such a large march before, but it was overwhelming.” Norton, now 86, and the District’s nonvoting delegate, said she knew once she saw how many people had come that “the march was not only successful, but they would help us with what we wanted the march to do.” Civil rights and voting rights legislation, as well as the 1968 Fair Housing Act, all came in part from the energy and commitment from the march, she said. Now, 60 years out, she said the political environment is so polarized it is hard to imagine the legislative achievements in the aftermath of the 1963 march being possible now. “Unlike the kind of atmosphere we had during the March on Washington, we have exactly the opposite now,” Norton said. Those pieces of legislation that responded to the March, the National Action Network said, is only a portion of the work that needs to be done. Other demands from marchers, presented by Byard Rustin at the march, were completed later than requested — the desegregation of all U.S. schools came after 1963. However, advocates at the action network argued that some demands — among them wages which “give all Americans a decent standard of living,” effective fair housing, the right to vote for people of color and broader demands for reparations — remain unmet while new issues continue to arise. “[The demonstration] won’t be a commemoration of Dr. King’s historic march, but rather a continuation of his fight for freedom, justice and equality,” Ashley Sharpton said. WTOP’s Melissa Howell and Kate Corliss contributed to this report.

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