[caption id="attachment_16050" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Motley family of Seaford joins the 1963 March on Washington (photo courtesy: Delaware Historical Society)"]
Sunday marks the 48th anniversary of one of the seminal events in the Civil Rights movement - the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The Motley family of Seaford (pictured left/courtesy: Delaware Historical Society) were among the estimated quarter of a million people who made their way to the nation's capital on August 28th, 1963 and heard Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
Many were expected to return to Washington D.C. to commemorate the event this weekend. A national monument to King opened this week on the National Mall and was to be officially dedicated weekend before Hurricane Irene forced the dedication ceremony to be postponed. The $120 million memorial is the first monument on the National Mall honoring an African-American.
John Watson has been a longtime talk show host at News/Talk 1450 WILM. In 1951, Watson was among a group of students who led a strike at Robert R. Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia over school segregation. He was also among student litigants in the 1952 U.S. District Court case, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, seeking integration of the public schools. That case joined with other similar cases from four other states to become the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case, which struck down the doctrine of “separate but equal”.
DFM News sat down with Watson to talk about the March on Washington, King's monument and legacy and the state of race relations in the United States 48 years after the event.
King Memorial and anniversary of 1963 March on Washington.
Excerpts of interview with WILM talk show host John Watson.
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