This photo essay - The Civil War Monitor

In the largest protest in the nation's history up to that time, more than 250,000 marchers gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, to demand legislation ending discrimination in education, housing, employment, and the courts. Initiated by A. Philip Randolph, international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, president of the Negro American Labor Council, and vice president of the AFL-CIO, the march also received leadership support from the heads of the five leading civil rights organizations: Roy Wilkins (1901–1981) of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Whitney Young, the National Urban League; James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), who was imprisoned in Louisiana and represented at the march by Floyd McKissick; Martin Luther King Jr. the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); John Lewis, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and Bayard Rustin, who organized the first freedom rides in 1947. The final speaker, Martin Luther King Jr., exhilarated the crowd with his "I Have a Dream" speech.

The link between race and class, however, could not be severed, especially during a Vietnam War that sent largely poor people of color to its bloody front lines. Even Martin Luther King began to see the links between unfettered funding for the war machine and the sea of poverty washing over America's domestic landscape. These insights set the stage for King's infamous "Time to Break Silence" speech of 1967 and his bridging of the gap between civil rights and economic justice.

Civil War Monitor Category: Photo Essays

A. Philip Randolph (1889–1979) was a leading African-American activist for several decades of the twentieth century. Randolph had championed the rights of workers in the 1920s, and in November 1941 he had threatened to lead a 100,000-person march on Washington if wartime production was not integrated. President Roosevelt responded by signing Executive Order 8802, which created a Fair Employment Practices Commission. Randolph called off the march.

For many Civil War soldiers, mail call was the highlight of the day. Handwritten letters from home served as a valuable lifeline to loved ones, maintaining morale and alleviating boredom. While the movements of the armies often disrupted delivery times, the U.S. postal service remained relatively effective—often allowing troops to send letters marked "Soldier's Letter" for free (postage was...

Photo Essay: The Civil War: Between the Battles

With the winter season nearly upon us, we thought it the perfect time to compile Civil War scenes—in photos and sketches—that invoke the chilly temperatures and inclement weather to come. Bundle up ... and enjoy.

World War II helped to lift the nation out the Great Depression. Yet African Americans found themselves on the margins of wartime prosperity. Federal defense spending did not desegregate jobs, public housing, or the armed forces. The United States entered the wartime world as the self-professed face of democracy, but African Americans began to make links between Nazi racism, European imperialism, and American white supremacy.

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