|
by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 07/27/2014, 3:19am PDT |
|
 |
|
 |
|
I went into the Post Office to pick up another package of Postage Stamps. In the "Forever" class, they had one called "Equality". Here's what it looks like, with adjustments: Post office regulations require reprints of a stamp to either be 1/2 original size or smaller, or at least twice as big, or marked with a cancellation strike, which is why all the small images have a black mark on them. One of the stamps was scanned at 300DPI, and that is the one pasted in the center::
On the reverse is the story about the march:
United States Postal Service wrote:
Early in the morning of August 28, 1963, hours before the March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom was to begin, Courtland Cox, a top official from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, walked to the still-deserted National Mall with the chief organizer of the march,
Bayard Rustin. ln the quiet, as mist rose from the Reflecting Pool, Cox tumed to Rustin.
“Do you think anybody’s coming?"
They came. They arrived by bus, train, and car. They bicycled from Ohio, hitchhiked from
Alabama, and walked from Brooklyn. One young man rollerskated from Chicago. That day, some
250,000 people joined one another in the hope and belief that change was possible.
Wearing their Sunday best, carrying placards, linking arms and joining voices, they filled the
National Mall from the Washington Monument to the long shadows of the Lincoln Memorial. ln a
peaceful gathering filled with music and hope, they gathered to listen to popular artists of the day
sing songs of yearning and courage. Speakers from religious groups, labor unions, and major civil
rights organizations talked of their belief that the time for change had come, was indeed, overdue.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., galvanized the watching nation with his dream of a day when “this
nation would rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal.”’ He envisioned a time when “all of God’s children
will be able to sing with new meaning: ‘My country ‘tis of thee; sweet land of liberty. . "
The brainchild of labor leader A. Philip Randolph, a seventy-four-year-old veteran of battles
against racial discrimination, the March on Washington was intended to be a call for strong
civil rights legislation and policies such as a national living wage and a large-scale jobs program
for the unemployed. More broadly, in King’s words, the march aimed "to arouse the conscience
of the nation."
it proved to be a milestone in the civil rights movement. Less than a year later, Congress passed
and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, followed by the
Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Whether black or white, Jewish, Protestant, or Catholic, young or old, rich or poor, for that one day
in American history, they were one, united and equal in the dream they shared. Yes, they came.
©2013 USPS |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
