“Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom:” 1957 Civil Rights March on Washington
The “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom” was the first of three African-American marches on Washington to commemorate the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision on May 17, 1954 declaring racially segregated schools unconstitutional.
An estimated 25,000 people came to Washington, D.C., on this day, the third anniversary of Brown v Board of Education (May 17, 1954), to demand civil rights for African-Americans. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King gave a speech entitled “Give Us the Ballot,” indicating a new civil rights campaign.
Two subsequent civil rights marches commemorating the Brown decision, which are also largely forgotten, occurred on October 25, 1958, and April 18, 1959. All three have been overshadowed by the famous 1963 March on Washington (August 28, 1963), where Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
In the first African-American march on Washington, 5,000 people conducted a silent march in front of the White House and the U.S. Senate building on June 22, 1922 to protest lynching and to call for a federal anti-lynching law. The first federal anti-lynching bill had been introduced in April 1, 1918.
Read Martin Luther King’s speech, “Give Us the Ballot”:http://www.mlkonline.net/ballot.html
See the book of magnificent photographs of the “Prayer Pilgrimage:” Lee Friedlander, Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom (2015)
Learn more about civil rights activism in the late 1950s: http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/us-civil-rights-activists-campaign-federal-government-action-1957-63
Learn more about the history of marching on Washington: Lucy Barber, Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition (2002)
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here