This work revisits a summer day in 1963 when Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his triumphant “I I have a dream” speech, a scathing critique of inequality in the United States: “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.”
These are heady words, spoken intelligibly by King, sung loudly by the peaceful protesters, written in capital letters on signs, banners and flyers. The letters came together to make sense, like the thousands of people who gathered before the Lincoln Memorial that August 23rd. The pictures appear chronologically, so we see history being written, the wide shots leaving little space for tight portraits, the deserted plaza filling with glorious bodies for a few historic hours before emptying out.
Leonard Freed immerses himself in the crowd to show the real agents of change, young and old, men and women, black and white, a sea of heads rescued from anonymity by photography. He breaks down the songs into several shots. We can read the words of optimism on the lips of a young girl. In the calm aftermath, we are left to contemplate a man seated on a step facing the deserted park. The marchers have gone but the lawn is left blanketed with white leaflets, heralds of a lasting change, but also of a struggle that cannot be won in a day, however memorable it was. Twenty years later, to celebrate the anniversary of the march, Freed returned to Washington. The atmosphere had changed: folded arms, frowning faces, poor posture. A few marchers stand in the middle of the water. The dream has not yet drowned. The fight is still going. Unity is still possible. Published 50 years after the historical day, the book still vibrates with unifying voices.
Laurence Cornet
“This is the Day. The March on Washington”
Leonard Freed
J. Paul Getty Museum Publications
128 pages, US $29.95
