May 17, 1957
In the “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,” probably the first major African-American march on Washington, an estimated 25,000 people marched the third anniversary of Brown v Board of Education to demand civil rights for African-Americans. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King gave a speech entitled Give Us the Ballot. “Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights …Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law … Give us the ballot and we will fill our legislative halls with men of good will … Give us the ballot and we will place judges on the benches of the South who will do justly and love mercy … Give us the ballot and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness . . .”
