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(CIVIL RIGHTS.) Louis Lo Monaco. March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963: We Shall Overcome. Pictorial paper portfolio, 11 x 9 1/4 inches, with seven leaves: introduction leaf, contents leaf, and five collage prints by Lo Monaco; light wrinkling to contents, long manuscript letter describing the march written on the rear blank of the portfolio. With a 3-page press release by the National Urban League announcing the publication of the portfolio, 22 August 1968. New York: Urban League, 1963
From the introduction: "This collection of graphic collages has been created specifically as a memento for those who participated in the historic March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs on August 28, 1963. It depicts man's inhumanity, his cruelty to his fellow human being. This memento, we believe, will inspire us to assert man's decency and goodness through an understanding of anguish." The introduction is signed in facsimile by the march leaders including Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, James Farmer, and Whitney M. Young Jr.
The present example is inscribed on the final blank with a long letter written the next afternoon by a march participant named Steve. In part: "I took the chartered plane with the California delegation to the march on Washington. Left on Tuesday evening. A fascinating group of people made for much good conversation, exchanging of addresses, etc. The march was very successful; the California group, terribly vocal. I was amazed by the discipline and organization. . . . It is unbelievable that there was not a single arrest. The only reported crime was one measly incident of a picked pocket. . . . I spent the evening making the rounds of all the parties where people like Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary were entertaining, and quite a few trips by cab into Silver Springs, Maryland to buy liquor (D. of C. was dry on the 28th). I became good friends with Marc Crawford--beat, avante-garde rebellious world revolutionary writer, former foreign editor of Ebony. . . . We spent all evening and morning going all over town by cab meeting people. We had an interesting conversation at James Baldwin's hotel room, and later with Rev. Martin Luther King at the Willard."
