March on Washington Movement

The March on Washington Movement (MOWM), 1941–1946, organized by activists A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin as a tool to produce a mass march on Washington, D.C., was designed to pressure the U.S. government into desegregating the armed forces and providing fair working opportunities for African Americans. When President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 in 1941, prohibiting discrimination in the defense industry under contract to federal agencies, Randolph and collaborators called off the march.

Randolph continued to promote non-violent actions to advance goals for African Americans. Future civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and other younger men were strongly influenced by Randolph and his ideals and methods.

Background

State of the nation

In the lead-up to the United States' entry into World War II, African Americans resented calls to "defend democracy" against Nazi racism while having to deal with discrimination in all sectors of life and business in the United States, especially the South, where they had been disenfranchised since the turn of the century and oppressed by Jim Crow laws.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the March on Washington, or The Great March on Washington as styled in a sound recording released after the event, was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. It took place in Washington, D.C..Thousands of Americans headed to Washington on Tuesday August 27, 1963. On Wednesday, August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism.

The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations, under the theme "jobs, and freedom". Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000; it is widely accepted that approximately 250,000 people participated in the march. Observers estimated that 75–80% of the marchers were black.

The march is credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and preceded the Selma Voting Rights Movement which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965).

Taxpayer March on Washington

The Taxpayer March on Washington (also known as the 9/12 Tea Party) was a Tea Party protest march from Freedom Plaza to the United States Capitol that was held on September 12, 2009, in Washington, D.C. The event coincided with other similar protests organized in various cities across the nation. The protesters rallied against what they consider big government, the dismantling of free market capitalism, abortion, and President Barack Obama's proposals on health care reform, taxation, and federal spending, among other issues.

The lead organizer of the event was Brendan Steinhauser, who was serving as the Director of Federal and State Campaigns for FreedomWorks. Organizers of the event included the 9-12 Project, FreedomWorks, the National Taxpayers Union, The Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, Tea Party Patriots, ResistNet and Americans for Prosperity. The event was also promoted by Fox News commentator Glenn Beck as a symbol of what he called "national unity" following the eight-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The march is the largest gathering of fiscal conservatives ever held in Washington, D.C., as well as the largest demonstration against President Obama's administration to date.

March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation

The March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on April 25, 1993. Organizers estimated that 1,000,000 attended the March. The D.C. Police Department put the number between 800,000 and more than 1 million. The National Park Service estimated attendance at 300,000, but their figure attracted so much negative attention that it shortly thereafter stopped issuing attendance estimates for similar events.

Background and planning

Between the 1987 March on Washington and the early 1990s, LGBT people achieved much more mainstream visibility than they ever had in the past. The LGBT community still faced widespread discrimination, through such policies as Don't Ask Don't Tell, Colorado's constitutional amendment (1992) invalidating laws that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and rising instances of LGBT-targeted hate crimes. In this climate, Urvashi Vaid of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force spearheaded the movement for a third LGBT March.

Washingtonian movement

The Washingtonian movement (Washingtonians, Washingtonian Temperance Society or Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society) was a 19th-century fellowship founded on April 2, 1840 by six alcoholics (William Mitchell, David Hoss, Charles Anderson, George Steer, Bill M'Curdy, and Tom Campbell) at Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street in Baltimore, Maryland. The idea was that by relying on each other, sharing their alcoholic experiences and creating an atmosphere of conviviality, they could keep each other sober. Total abstinence from alcohol was their goal. The group taught sobriety and preceded Alcoholics Anonymous by almost a century. Members sought out other "drunkards" (the term alcoholic had not yet been created), told them their experiences with alcohol abuse and how the Society had helped them achieve sobriety. With the passage of time the Society became a prohibitionist organization in that it promoted the legal and mandatory prohibition of alcoholic beverages. The Society was the inspiration for Timothy Shay Arthur's Six Nights with the Washingtonians and his Ten Nights in a Bar-Room.