August 22, 2013 Congressman John Lewis to Open “A Day Like No Other” March on Washington Photo Exhibition, Aug. 28

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who was a young civil-rights leader in 1963, will open the photo exhibition “A Day Like No Other: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington” at the Library of Congress on Aug. 28.

The Library will present an additional one-day display of treasured documents and materials related to the March on Washington, including a copy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech submitted for copyright registration on Oct. 2, 1963.

Lewis will speak at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 28 in the Great Hall on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public. Tickets and reservations are not needed.

The display, which is also free and open to the public, will be on view from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 28 in the Coolidge Auditorium Foyer and in the Whittall Pavilion on the ground level of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C.

The Library’s photo exhibition “A Day Like No Other” features 40 black-and-white photographs from newspaper and other media photographers, independent photojournalists and people who participated in the march on Aug. 28, 1963. The images represent the cross-section of individuals who attended the largest nonviolent demonstration for civil rights that America had ever witnessed. The exhibit conveys the immediacy of being at the march and the palpable excitement of those who were there. A video screen in the exhibit will show an additional 58 photos.

The photo exhibition is located in the Graphic Arts Galleries on the ground level of the Jefferson Building. It is free and open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and will run through March 1, 2014.

The one-day display will draw from materials in the following divisions of the Library: Manuscript; Prints and Photographs; Music; Serial and Government Publications; and Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound, as well as the American Folklife Center and the Law Library. Curators from the divisions will be present to discuss the items with visitors.

In addition to the “I Have a Dream” speech, highlights from the one-day display include:

• Two versions of the speech at the march by John Lewis, then-chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): the original, prior to editing, and the one he presented.
• Chief organizer Bayard Rustin’s original planning notes for the march.
• March director A. Philip Randolph’s letter to President John F. Kennedy requesting a meeting “to discuss the program of the march and plans for implementation by your administration and Congress.”
• Thurgood Marshall’s “Saving the Race” memorandum to the NAACP legal staff.
• Draft legislation for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts.
• Sound recordings, lyrics and sheet music related to the march.
• Retrospective video interviews with march participants drawn from the Civil Rights History project that is coordinated by the American Folklife Center.
• ABC’s complete television coverage of the march, including the major speeches, interviews with participants and observers, and commentary.

Also at the display, in a comment book, visitors will have the opportunity to note their recollections of the march and what it means today.

Additionally on Aug. 28, there will be a panel discussion on “The Bayard Rustin Papers” from noon to 1 p.m. in Dining Room A on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. The panel will provide insight into the life of Rustin, civil-rights leader and chief organizer for the March on Washington, as shown through the Bayard Rustin Papers. The papers, held in the Library’s Manuscript Division, illuminate the man and his mission of equality. The event is free and open to the public.

The panel will be moderated by Sharon J. Lettman-Hicks, executive director and chief executive officer of the National Black Justice Coalition. Members of the panel will be Library of Congress employees Adrienne Cannon, John Ashley, Luis Clavell and Brock Thompson.

In conjunction with the photo exhibition “A Day Like No Other,” curators Maricia Battle and Verna Curtis will offer a tour and discuss the images at noon on Wednesday, Sept. 4, in the Graphic Arts Galleries.

“A Day Like No Other” and its programming were made possible by the generous support of the J.J. Medveckis Foundation, the Friends of the Law Library of Congress, the Law Library Various Donors Gift Fund, Roberta I. Shaffer, and an anonymous donor to the Prints and Photographs Division.

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.