On this day in Labor History the year was 1963.
That was the day one of the most important stands for justice and equality took place in United States history.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech” to a quarter-million people in Washington D.C.
But did you know that one of the main organizers for the march was a man by the name of Bayard Rustin?
Rustin is often left out of the history books because he was gay and because of earlier communist affiliations.
He was born in 1912, and raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
He was raised in the Quaker tradition, and his commitment to peaceful, non-violent protest continued into the Civil Rights Movement.
Rustin joined the Young Communists League in the 1930s, a time when Communist organizers were some of the few people actively speaking out about racial injustice in the United States.
After he left the YCL, Rustin spent a brief time as the youth organizer for a March on Washington planned in the 1940s.
This movement was led by one, A. Philip Randolph.
The planned march was aimed at putting pressure on President Franklin D. Roosevelt to desegregate work at industries with federal wartime manufacturing contracts.
When President Roosevelt agreed to issue an order desegregating these jobs, the planned march was called off.
But the idea for the march lived on, and became a reality during the Civil Rights Movement.
Rustin went on to work in the labor movement.
He became the founder and first director of the AFL-CIO’s A. Philip Randolph Institute, which focuses on tearing down the walls of discrimination in work places and within the labor movement
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March 19 - Wartime President Pushes for Labor Peace
March 18 - Wartime Workers Betrayed
March 17 - The Hoggs Hollow Tragedy
March 16 - Big Bill Haywood Talks General Strike
March 15 - The Grapes of Wrath Opens in Theaters
March 14 - Remembering Walter Crane
March 13 - Ending Jim Crow on the Job
March 12 - OSHA Safety Incentives
March 11 - Raising Conditions for an Industry
March 10 - Radium Girls
March 9 - Striking the Mines
March 8 - IBEW Strikes to Win
March 7 - Work Faster! Work Faster!
March 6 - International Unemployed Day
March 5 -Lordstown Syndrome
March 4 - Mismanagement Kills an Airline
March 3 - Wildcat Strikes Hit Chrysler and Briggs
March 2 - Greyhound Bus Strike Begins
March 1 - The Hoover Dam Goes Public
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