Constitution Day: 2023 Exhibit: The March on Washington

The Collection tells the story of the League’s early trials and tribulations, programs, and successes and failures. It also chronicles the story of the National Urban League through the eyes of a local affiliate. And, lastly, the Collection is largely the story of one man, James N. Williams, the first director, who served for thirty years in Providence and participated in the triumphs in the battle for racial equality in this nation.

The NAACP Providence Branch was formed in Providence, R.I., in the winter of 1913-1914 as the local chapter of the NAACP. The NAACP is a civil rights organization founded in 1909 in New York City as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey and Ida B. Wells. Over the years, leaders of the organization have included Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins. Its mission in the 21st century is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination. NAACP Providence works to safeguard the political, educational, social, and economic equality of minority groups in Rhode Island. The NAACP Providence Branch collection consists of correspondence, documents, publications, newspaper clippings and other material about civil rights issues both in Rhode Island and throughout the nation. The collection has particularly strong coverage of the 1960s and 1970s.

The PC Archives holds over 50 special collections, with special strength in Rhode Island politics of the mid 20th century. Our finding aids can be found here.

The Motion Picture Preservation Lab preserved James Blue's monumental film, The March, in 2008. To mark the 50th anniversary of the The March for Jobs and Freedom the National Archives completed a full digital restoration of the film. The original negatives assembled by James Blue were scanned and three months were spent restoring defects in the image and enhancing the audio track.

Scenes from Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C., August 1963 from the National Archives.

Artifacts and photographs about the March on Washington from Smithsonian Institutions.

The Civil Rights Movement Archive was created by veterans of the Southern Freedom Movement who wanted to provide access to photos and other historic documents created by the original Freedom Movement.

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom page from Google Arts and Culture curates historical images and artifacts from various museums around the country.

The Legal Defense Fund is a legal organization fighting for racial justice. This page offers videos of the major speeches and songs from the March on Washington, as well as primary source documents.

In 1963, eight years before National Public Radio hit the airwaves, GBH and a small network of radio stations dubbed the “Educational Radio Network” (ERN) teamed up to broadcast full, uninterrupted coverage of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

A virtual exhibit from the John F. Kennedy Library which presents primary sources to demonstrate JFK's role in the March on Washington.

The Library of Congress and the National Museum of African American History and Culture conducted a survey of oral histories involving the Civil Rights Movement. These interviewees talk about their experience at the March on Washington.

The Center for Legislative Archives presents congressional documents related to the March.

This material is a collection of official Civil Rights Division documents, including the public's response and newspaper accounts of the ‘Freedom March on Washington’.

Artifacts and photographs from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Curated primary sources from the March on Washington from the Digital Library of Georgia.

Oral histories from central figures at the March on Washington, such as Bayard Rustin, Whitney Young, and James Farmer. These materials are from the Robert Penn Warren estate.

The NAACP recalls the origins of the March on Washington, the role the NAACP played in the event, and the legacy of the March.

Freedom’s Ring is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, animated. Here you can compare the written and spoken speech, explore multimedia images, listen to movement activists, and uncover historical context.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee recalls the origins of the March on Washington and the role the SNCC and its chair John Lewis played in the event.

Changing America RI tells national and local stories about the years 1863 and 1963—two moments in time that radically altered the United States’ history of struggles for equality. Changing America RI is presented by Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, with significant support from the Rhode Island Historical Society.

The Historical Legacy of the March on Washington from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.