Bishop Lawson: The First March on Washington

Here Bishop Lawson is speaking at the first major march on Washington, the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. The first major march on Washington by African Americans, the Prayer Pilgrimage brought some 25,000 to Lincoln's Memorial and is one of a handful of national demonstrations that preceded the 1963 March on Washington. Lawson, an established minister with an international following, joined A. Phillip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Martin Luther King Jr., who called for the march to urge the federal government to stand by the Brown v. Board decision of 1954. Other national figures were also in attendance.

In the background of this photo, a young King is shown with longtime partner Ralph Abernathy. The picture represents something of a changing of the guard. Lawson had for a long time spoken out against race prejudice, and embraced Pan-Africanism. King, the last speaker that day, May 17, 1957, would take up the mantle as a (even better: the) national spokesman of civil rights with his first national address, "Give Us the Ballot." 

Those familiar with Lawson's story will know that 1957 was a very important year. Lawson would decrease while a younger generation, but especially King, would increase. By the time King returned to the National Mall in 1963, Lawson and many of the pillars of the first half of the century had made their final exits.