May 22, 2013 (REVISED August 1, 2013) “A Day Like No Other: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington”

The Library of Congress will present an exhibition, “A Day Like No Other: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington,” to mark what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the greatest demonstration for freedom in the nation’s history.”

The exhibition will open on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, 50 years after the historic day when 250,000 people participated in the largest non-violent demonstration for civil rights that America had ever witnessed. With a rallying cry of “jobs and freedom,” a diverse crowd gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial to urge Congress to act on proposed legislation.

Free and open to the public, Monday to Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., the exhibition will be on display through Saturday, March 1, 2014, in the Graphic Arts Galleries on the ground level of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C.

“A Day Like No Other” will consist of 42 black-and-white images. These photographs—from newspaper and other media photographers, independent photojournalists and people who participated in the march—represent the cross-section of individuals who were there. Part of the collections in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division, the images convey the immediacy of being at the march and the palpable excitement of those who were there. The exhibition will allow visitors to rediscover the context and ongoing legacy of this important event in the country’s history.

Among the photographs on display will be works by:

• Members of Magnum Photos, the world’s most prestigious photographic agency, including prints by Bruce Davidson, Danny Lyon and Leonard Freed;
• Freelance photojournalists Bob Adelman and Flip Schulke, well-known for their coverage of the civil rights movement;
• David S. Johnson, a student of Ansel Adams;
• AP, UPI, New York World-Telegram and Sun, U.S. News & World Report and Look magazine photographers showing preparations for the event and the march leaders;
• Roosevelt Carter from Columbus, Ohio, a professional photographer who recorded his experience of the entire day.

In addition to the 42 images, the exhibition will feature a video presentation that includes 50 additional images taken by professional and amateur photographers that documented the historic march.

A “Day Like No Other” is made possible by the generous support of John J. Medveckis, the Law Library of Congress and Friends of the Law Library of Congress, and the Prints and Photographs Division.

The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division includes more than 15 million photographs, drawings and prints from the 15th century to the present day. International in scope, these visual collections represent a uniquely rich array of human experience, knowledge, creativity and achievement, touching on almost every realm of endeavor: science, art, invention, government and political struggle, and the recording of history. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/rr/print/.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds more than 155 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.