Who served as chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom?

Bayard Rustin served as the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Rustin coordinated transportation, marshaling, security, logistics, and the event’s tightly timed program. The march was held on August 28, 1963, and brought roughly 250,000 people to Washington, D.C. It became one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in United States history.

Rustin worked closely with A. Philip Randolph, the veteran labor leader who had originally proposed a mass march on Washington in 1941. Rustin’s organizing experience came from the pacifist movement, labor activism, and earlier civil rights campaigns, including the Freedom Rides.

A common mix-up is to name Martin Luther King Jr. as the organizer. King was the march’s most famous speaker and delivered “I Have a Dream,” but Rustin handled the central operational planning. Rustin later became an important advocate for gay rights as well as civil rights.