“Racism will be a permanent fixture on the American landscape - this may not be a last stand, but a profound inflection point as the end of the Second Reconstruction. The first reconstruction was violent, the second one is [now] methodical,” concluded Damon Hewitt, President of the Lawyers Committee of Civil Right Under Law, reflecting on the 63rd Anniversary March On Washington, in an interview on Frontline Voices on September 4.
Bullet proof glass surrounded speakers during the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington, the previous week when hundreds of protestors and politicians alike stood on Lincoln Memorial six decades after Martin Luther King delivered his legendary, ‘I Have A Dream’ speech.
August 28th stands as a prominent day in black history for a multitude of reasons, all holding injustice accountable. From the original March On Washington and British Slavery Abolition Act, to the murder of Emmet Till, Friday added to the full historic scope of the storied date.
Organized by Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and Martin Luther King III, this event stands on the back of social justice issues that protestors nationwide have sought to resolve for decades, however this year specifically took a focus on voting rights.
In light of upcoming midterm elections and congressional map reshaping made by recent changes to voting laws and redistricting, the moniker of this year’s march read, “Defend The Vote”. As hundreds of people chanted the phrase and held their signs high, it was clear that the Washington D.C. community, along with the black community, were extremely displeased with recent judicial and government law changes.
For context, in April 2026 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a major decision through Louisiana v. Callais, completely gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on a federal level. The Voting Rights Act was famously catalyzed by the civil rights movement and the original March on Washington.
This revision of federal policy says that states are now allowed to draw new political boundaries based upon their own partisan goals, consequently allowing political parties to have advantage over one another in Congress. This action allows for explicit discriminatory gerrymandering through two segways- packing and cracking.
Packing is the act of squeezing voters aligned on specific issues or partisanship into one district based upon detailed voter software, diluting objective influence external to the overfilled district. Cracking is when lawmakers spread these voters throughout the state by drawing strict boundaries based upon the same software, diluting the objective worth of their vote specific to the district.
“The Callais decision needs to be understood within the context of other horrible Supreme Court decisions like Shelby County and Brnovich decisions of 2013 and 2021, that gutted voter pre-clearance provisions and pushed forward the ballot collection ban. Callais is a different part of the same problem dismantling Section 2 of the Voters Rights Act,” Hewitt told WBAI.
“The Supreme Court rewrote the law, now needing intentional discrimination [to proceed], despite the fact that in its 1982 amendments, Congress determined that intent was not needed if enough evidence is provided to show disproportionate impact. That's how discrimination works today, it’s always hard to find the smoking gun, but what you will find is a slow death by 1,000 cuts”, he continued.
Black and latino voters across the nation feel as though this act has disintegrated equal representation for their concerns as a means to political gain. As reported by the Brennan Center for Justice, “The Roberts Court has made it practically impossible to enforce the landmark law's prohibition on racial discrimination in redistricting.”
Additionally, ongoing concerns surrounding increased policing at voting stations, coupled with efforts to decimate voting rights for incarcerated individuals, have left minority voter communities feeling increasingly threatened by government action. For black voters, many whose access to the ballot has historically relied on federal intervention against discriminatory practices, these actions seem aggressively in alignment with conservative agendas that continually push the bounds on racial inequality.
Combining this with the fact that Washington D.C.’s lack of statehood is viewed as Councilmember Robert White says, “unfinished business of the civil rights movement”, the Lincoln Memorial acted as the perfect historic playground for very current protest and activism.
Hence, the apparent need to march once more.
Alongside more than 90 community partner organizations, including the NAACP and National Urban League, the march brought together civil rights groups, elected officials, labor unions, faith leaders, students, members of Black Greek-letter organizations and families from across the country.
Guest speakers included Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hakeem Jeffries and Ben Crump, attorney representing the family of Nolan Wells. From 9 A.M. start time straight on to the end, one by one, speakers piled on the current administration's recent actions, the president’s lies and his seemingly intentional pitfalls.
During his time behind the bullet proof glass, Bernie Sanders detailed, “Today we have a President, who along with Supreme Court members he selected, are carrying out the most significant assault on the electoral system since segregation. Bottom line, Donald Trump is an authoritarian who is deliberately trying to destroy faith in American democracy, create confusion and sow distrust.”
“We must never accept an economy in which so few have so much, while so many have so little,” he continued.
Mr. Sharpton also took his turn in criticizing our nation’s leadership, expressing, “The [Callais] decision by the Supreme Court shot a bullet in the heart of voting rights, but we will not let them turn back the hands of time… if we go back and organize like they did in 1963, we can put a handicap on the most biased and bigoted presidency that we have seen in a long time.”
During the onset of speeches, Maurice Mitchell, National Director of the Working Families Party, cited the current attempt in “shutting down the black vote”, among a plethora of other social justice issues as “white supremacy’s desperate last stand”.
The 1963 March on Washington brought approximately 250,000 people to the nation’s capital, united by demands for racial equality, economic opportunity, civil rights protections and an end to segregation. More than six decades later, the 2026 gathering took place under a markedly different political climate, yet echoed many of the same concerns over equal participation, political representation and the protection of democratic rights.
“This movement has changed America, however we have not yet arrived yet…the people who came before us didn’t fight so that we could check a box or say “we have arrived”, they fought for us to create a democracy that will continue moving towards justice”, said Tylik McMillan, National Youth and College Director of the NAACP.
Although the event took place roughly a mile away from the White House, President Trump was not in attendance. At around 1:55 as the March began, his helicopter Marine 1 flew overhead as attendees continued marching.
