It came to be remembered as one of the defining moments in American history, with 250,000 people flooding into the nation’s capital to call peacefully for change.
But as America marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Martin Luther King Jr’s iconic “I Have a Dream Speech,” the nervous backdrop to the demonstration is often forgotten.
“Can you guarantee categorically that there will be no violence?” US Senator Winston Prouty asked in The Afro-American on August 3, 1963, reflecting the widely-held concern that the event might descend into bloodshed.
Prouty’s question, directed at Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), came after several violent clashes elsewhere in the country in the months leading up to the march.
Wilkins, however, was in no mood to grant Prouty’s request.
“We can make no such guarantee or claim,” he replied. “The colored American has been waiting upon voluntary action since 1876. He has found what other Americans have discovered: voluntary action has to be sparked by something stronger than prayers, patience and lamentations.”
Many newspapers and politicians, including some of those who had openly championed the civil rights movement’s cause, questioned whether Washington would be able to cope with the huge crowds expected to descend on the nation’s capital.
President John F. Kennedy had been among those who sought to dissuade the rights movement from going ahead with the protest.
“We told him we were going to have a march on Washington, and you could tell by the body language of the president, he didn’t like the idea of a march on Washington,” John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, recalled in recent comments to Time Magazine.
“He said, in effect, ‘If you bring all these people to Washington, won’t there be violence and chaos and disorder?'”
Kennedy eventually gave his public support to the march on July 17, 1963, but his concern about the possibility of mayhem remained evident.
“I have warned against demonstrations which could lead to riots, demonstrations which could lead to bloodshed, and I warn now against it,” he said.
Organizers had anticipated a record crowd of around 100,000 people to attend — a huge amount for a demonstration scheduled in midweek, Wednesday, August 28.
Authorities stitched together an unprecedented security blanket for the event, bigger even than those put in place for presidential inaugurations.
Some 1,900 local police officers, 1,900 metropolitan police, 2,000 National Guardsmen, 430 firemen, 500 police reservists and 300 US Park Police were placed on duty.
An additional 4,000 troops at nearby bases were on standby. Stores selling alcohol were ordered to close.
“The city of Washington almost went crazy,” Julian Bond, co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, told Time in a recent interview.
“They canceled all elective surgery. They put surgeons and doctors on full time, waiting for something bad to happen.
“They put policemen on 18-hour shifts. They just went out of the way to prepare for what they thought would be some kind of massive riot.
“They couldn’t imagine this many black people coming together without some awful, awful disturbance in the streets.”
March organizers also recruited several hundred black police officers from New York to form an unarmed security team for the march.
Officials meanwhile feared provocation from the Ku Klux Klan. The leader of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, had announced a counter-protest for the same day that was to be policed by 200 officers.
About 250,000 individuals turned out for the march, including many wearing their Sunday best clothes. The success of the march was immediately evident, and the organizers were invited to the White House for an audience with a relieved Kennedy.
“The cause of 20 million Negroes has been advanced by the program concluded so appropriately before the nation’s shrine to the Great Emancipator, but even more significant is the contribution to all mankind,” Kennedy enthused in a statement.
Less than a year later, President Lyndon Johnson — who succeeded Kennedy following his assassination in November 1963 — signed the Civil Rights Act into law on July 2, 1964. Behind his left shoulder stood Martin Luther King Jr.
March on Washington security fears proved unfounded
