title: Joint probability distribution

text: Suppose each of two urns contains twice as many red balls as blue balls, and no others, and suppose one ball is randomly selected from each urn, with the two draws independent of each other. Let formula_1 and formula_2 be discrete random variables associated with the outcomes of the draw from the first urn and second urn respectively. The probability of drawing a red ball from either of the urns is 2/3, and the probability of drawing a blue ball is 1/3. The joint probability distribution is presented in the following table:


title: Joint probability distribution

text: Each of the four inner cells shows the probability of a particular combination of results from the two draws; these probabilities are the joint distribution. In any one cell the probability of a particular combination occurring is (since the draws are independent) the product of the probability of the specified result for A and the probability of the specified result for B. The probabilities in these four cells sum to 1, as it is always true for probability distributions.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: Moreover, the final row and the final column give the marginal probability distribution for A and the marginal probability distribution for B respectively. For example, for A the first of these cells gives the sum of the probabilities for A being red, regardless of which possibility for B in the column above the cell occurs, as 2/3. Thus the marginal probability distribution for formula_1 gives formula_1's probabilities "unconditional" on formula_2, in a margin of the table.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: Consider the flip of two fair coins; let formula_1 and formula_2 be discrete random variables associated with the outcomes of the first and second coin flips respectively. Each coin flip is a Bernoulli trial and has a Bernoulli distribution. If a coin displays "heads" then the associated random variable takes the value 1, and it takes the value 0 otherwise. The probability of each of these outcomes is 1/2, so the marginal (unconditional) density functions are


title: Joint probability distribution

text: The joint probability mass function of formula_1 and formula_2 defines probabilities for each pair of outcomes. All possible outcomes are


title: Joint probability distribution

text: Consider the roll of a fair dice and let formula_15 if the number is even (i.e. 2, 4, or 6) and formula_16 otherwise. Furthermore, let formula_17 if the number is prime (i.e. 2, 3, or 5) and formula_18 otherwise.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: Then, the joint distribution of formula_1 and formula_2, expressed as a probability mass function, is


title: Joint probability distribution

text: These probabilities necessarily sum to 1, since the probability of "some" combination of formula_1 and formula_2 occurring is 1.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: If more than one random variable is defined in a random experiment, it is important to distinguish between the joint probability distribution of X and Y and the probability distribution of each variable individually. The individual probability distribution of a random variable is referred to as its marginal probability distribution. In general, the marginal probability distribution of X can be determined from the joint probability distribution of X and other random variables.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: If the joint probability density function of random variable X and Y is formula_25 , the marginal probability density function of X and Y, which defines the Marginal distribution, is given by:


title: Joint probability distribution

text: where the first integral is over all points in the range of (X,Y) for which X=x and the second integral is over all points in the range of (X,Y) for which Y=y.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: For a pair of random variables formula_28, the joint cumulative distribution function (CDF) formula_29 is given by


title: Joint probability distribution

text: where the right-hand side represents the probability that the random variable formula_30 takes on a value less than or equal to formula_31 and that formula_32 takes on a value less than or equal to formula_33.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: Interpreting the formula_34 random variables as a random vector formula_38 yields a shorter notation:


title: Joint probability distribution

text: The generalization of the preceding two-variable case is the joint probability distribution of formula_45 discrete random variables formula_46 which is:


title: Joint probability distribution

text: The joint probability density function formula_25 for two continuous random variables is defined as the derivative of the joint cumulative distribution function (see ):


title: Joint probability distribution

text: where formula_54 and formula_55 are the conditional distributions of formula_32 given formula_57 and of formula_30 given formula_59 respectively, and formula_60 and formula_61 are the marginal distributions for formula_30 and formula_32 respectively.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: The "mixed joint density" may be defined where one or more random variables are continuous and the other random variables are discrete. With one variable of each type


title: Joint probability distribution

text: One example of a situation in which one may wish to find the cumulative distribution of one random variable which is continuous and another random variable which is discrete arises when one wishes to use a logistic regression in predicting the probability of a binary outcome Y conditional on the value of a continuously distributed outcome formula_30. One "must" use the "mixed" joint density when finding the cumulative distribution of this binary outcome because the input variables formula_68 were initially defined in such a way that one could not collectively assign it either a probability density function or a probability mass function. Formally, formula_25 is the probability density function of formula_68 with respect to the product measure on the respective supports of formula_30 and formula_32. Either of these two decompositions can then be used to recover the joint cumulative distribution function:


title: Joint probability distribution

text: The definition generalizes to a mixture of arbitrary numbers of discrete and continuous random variables.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: In general two random variables formula_30 and formula_32 are independent if and only if the joint cumulative distribution function satisfies


title: Joint probability distribution

text: Two discrete random variables formula_30 and formula_32 are independent if and only if the joint probability mass function satisfies


title: Joint probability distribution

text: While the number of independent random events grows, the related joint probability value decreases rapidly to zero, according to a negative exponential law.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: for all formula_31 and formula_33. This means that acquiring any information about the value of one or more of the random variables leads to a conditional distribution of any other variable that is identical to its unconditional (marginal) distribution; thus no variable provides any information about any other variable.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: If a subset formula_1 of the variables formula_86 is conditionally dependent given another subset formula_2 of these variables, then the probability mass function of the joint distribution is formula_88. formula_88 is equal to formula_90. Therefore, it can be efficiently represented by the lower-dimensional probability distributions formula_91 and formula_92. Such conditional independence relations can be represented with a Bayesian network or copula functions.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: When two or more random variables are defined on a probability space, it is useful to describe how they vary together; that is, it is useful to measure the relationship between the variables. A common measure of the relationship between two random variables is the covariance. Covariance is a measure of linear relationship between the random variables. If the relationship between the random variables is nonlinear, the covariance might not be sensitive to the relationship, which means, it does not relate the correlation between two variables.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: There is another measure of the relationship between two random variables that is often easier to interpret than the covariance.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: The correlation just scales the covariance by the product of the standard deviation of each variable. Consequently, the correlation is a dimensionless quantity that can be used to compare the linear relationships between pairs of variables in different units. If the points in the joint probability distribution of X and Y that receive positive probability tend to fall along a line of positive (or negative) slope, ρ is near +1 (or −1). If ρ equals +1 or −1, it can be shown that the points in the joint probability distribution that receive positive probability fall exactly along a straight line. Two random variables with nonzero correlation are said to be correlated. Similar to covariance, the correlation is a measure of the linear relationship between random variables.


title: Joint probability distribution

text: Named joint distributions that arise frequently in statistics include the multivariate normal distribution, the multivariate stable distribution, the multinomial distribution, the negative multinomial distribution, the multivariate hypergeometric distribution, and the elliptical distribution.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: Paranormal Activity 2 is a 2010 American found footage supernatural horror film directed by Tod Williams and written by Michael R. Perry, Christopher Landon and Tom Pabst. The film is a prequel to the 2007 film "Paranormal Activity", beginning two months before and following up with the events depicted in the original film. It was released in theaters at midnight on October 22, 2010 in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Poland and Ireland.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: In August 2006, a "burglary" occurs at the home of Kristi (Sprague Grayden) and Daniel Rey (Brian Boland), trashing their house and leaving only their infant son Hunter's bedroom untouched. The only thing stolen is a necklace that Kristi's sister, Katie, gave to her. Martine, the Latin American family housekeeper and nanny, senses "evil spirits" in the house and burns sage to rid the house of them, and Daniel fires her for doing so. Kristi also believes that their home is haunted, and she and Katie talk about being tormented by a demon when they were children. Daniel, however, initially dismisses her claim despite footage of strange occurrences around the house. Daniel's daughter from a prior marriage, Ali (Molly Ephraim), begins investigating the mysterious happenings; she discovers that humans can make deals with demons for wealth or power by forfeiting the soul of their first-born son, but if the deal is not fulfilled, the demon will stick to the family until another son is born—Hunter was the first male to be born on Kristi's side since the 1930s.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: The violence escalates, as the family's German shepherd, Abby, is attacked by the demon and apparently suffers from a seizure. As Daniel and Ali take Abby to the veterinarian, Kristi is attacked and dragged into the basement by the demon, possessing her. The following day, Ali is left home with Kristi, unaware she is possessed. Soon, Ali hears a scratch sound in the basement door and opens it to find scratches and sees a word, "meus" (Latin for "Mine"), etched into it. A strange bite mark on her leg and the footage of Kristi’s attack motivates Daniel to re-hire Martine, who prepares a cross to exorcise the demon; Kristi will have no memory of having been possessed. Daniel goes to pass the demon onto Katie so that Kristi and Hunter will be saved, despite Ali's pleas not to.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: That night, when Daniel tries to use the cross on Kristi, she attacks him and the houselights all go out. Using the handheld camera's night vision, he walks around the shaking house into the basement where he is attacked by Kristi; he retaliates against her with the cross, causing her to collapse. Daniel puts Kristi to bed and burns a photo of a young Katie, passing the demon onto her. Three weeks later, Katie visits and explains that strange things have begun happening at her house. On October 9, the night after Micah is killed, a possessed and bloodstained Katie breaks into the Rey house, kills Daniel and Kristi and then takes Hunter with her. Ali comes home from a school trip to find the corpses, and Katie and Hunter went missing.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: Paramount and DreamWorks hired screenwriter Michael R. Perry to create "Paranormal Activity 2". Oren Peli, the director of the first film, served as a producer for this prequel. Kevin Greutert, director of "Saw VI", was initially hired to direct the prequel; however, Lions Gate Entertainment exercised a clause in Greutert's contract to have him direct the final film in the "Saw" franchise. Other directors considered to replace him before Tod Williams included Brian De Palma, Akiva Goldsman, Brad Anderson, and Greg McLean. Both of the actors from the first film, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, reprise their roles in the prequel. Tod Williams directed "Paranormal Activity 2", which started production in May 2010 and finished filming in only three weeks.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: In a special promotion set up by the film's producers, participants had a chance to win a free movie ticket if they were in the top twenty cities to demand the film, via Eventful.com. The teaser trailer was seen with "" upon its release on June 30, 2010. Cinemark pulled the trailer from several Texas theaters after receiving complaints that it was too frightening. In Mexico, it was attached to the 3D version of "". A second theatrical trailer was released on October 1, 2010. The trailer was attached to "Devil", "My Soul to Take" and "Jackass 3D".


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: The film was released in the United States on October 22, 2010. The film was made available in IMAX format as well as standard.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 58% based on reviews from 137 critics, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The consensus states that ""Paranormal Activity 2" doesn't cover any new ground, but its premise is still scary—and in some respects, it's a better film than the original." On Metacritic, the film has received an weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a grade B.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: Artistdirect called it "one of the scariest films of all time". "Entertainment Weekly" said the film "blends [shock and suspense] into what might be called "shockpense""; reviewer Owen Gleiberman called it a "shivery-skillful, highly worthy fear-factor sequel" and wrote, "The images all point "down", which is subtly disquieting, and each one is composed with enough wide-angle space and distance, and enough nooks and crannies, so that even when nothing is happening, the often dead-silent shots tend to grow scarier the more you look at them... It made me jump, sweat, and chew my fingernails." Roger Ebert, who awarded the original film three and a half stars, awarded "Paranormal Activity 2" one-and-a-half out of a possible four.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: "Paranormal Activity 2" broke the record for biggest midnight gross for an R-rated film with $6.3 million, beating the previous record-holder "Watchmen" by $4.6 million, and broke the record for biggest opening for a horror movie of all time. On its opening day, "Paranormal Activity 2" placed number one at the box office, making $20,100,000 and finished with a total of $41,500,000 estimated over the weekend, placing first at the box office. It has currently grossed $84,752,907 in North America and $92,759,125 overseas, giving the film a worldwide total of $177,512,032.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: "Paranormal Activity 2" was released on DVD/Blu-ray and video on demand/pay-per-view on February 8, 2011, and includes an unrated director's cut and deleted scenes. "Paranormal Activity 2" was placed at #1 for top Blu-ray and rental sales for its first week of being out.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: The deleted scene from "Paranormal Activity 2" titled "Hunter" is available in "Paranormal Activity 2: Unrated Director's Cut".


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: "Paranormal Activity 3" is a 2011 American supernatural horror film, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. It is the third film of the "Paranormal Activity" series and serves as a prequel, set 18 years prior to the events of the first two films. It was released in theaters on October 21, 2011.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: The fourth installment, "Paranormal Activity 4", was released on October 18, 2012 in the United States. It was planned to take place four years after the events of "Paranormal Activity 2". Katie and Hunter have reappeared and live in a house across the street from Alex and Wyatt. Alex and her family begin experiencing paranormal events taking place in their own home. "Toby" is mentioned once in the film, said by Ben. Although a box office success, "Paranormal Activity 4" was a critical failure.


title: Paranormal Activity 2

text: A fifth film, "" and sixth film, "", were released in 2014 and 2015 respectively. A seventh film, "", was released in 2021.


title: Speech

text: Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if they are the same word, e.g., "role" or "hotel"), and using those words in their semantic character as words in the lexicon of a language according to the syntactic constraints that govern lexical words' function in a sentence. In speaking, speakers perform many different intentional speech acts, e.g., informing, declaring, asking, persuading, directing, and can use enunciation, intonation, degrees of loudness, tempo, and other non-representational or paralinguistic aspects of vocalization to convey meaning. In their speech, speakers also unintentionally communicate many aspects of their social position such as sex, age, place of origin (through accent), physical states (alertness and sleepiness, vigor or weakness, health or illness), psychological states (emotions or moods), physico-psychological states (sobriety or drunkenness, normal consciousness and trance states), education or experience, and the like.


title: Speech

text: Although people ordinarily use speech in dealing with other persons (or animals), when people swear they do not always mean to communicate anything to anyone, and sometimes in expressing urgent emotions or desires they use speech as a quasi-magical cause, as when they encourage a player in a game to do or warn them not to do something. There are also many situations in which people engage in solitary speech. People talk to themselves sometimes in acts that are a development of what some psychologists (e.g., Lev Vygotsky) have maintained is the use of silent speech in an interior monologue to vivify and organize cognition, sometimes in the momentary adoption of a dual persona as self addressing self as though addressing another person. Solo speech can be used to memorize or to test one's memorization of things, and in prayer or in meditation (e.g., the use of a mantra).


title: Speech

text: Researchers study many different aspects of speech: speech production and speech perception of the sounds used in a language, speech repetition, speech errors, the ability to map heard spoken words onto the vocalizations needed to recreate them, which plays a key role in children's enlargement of their vocabulary, and what different areas of the human brain, such as Broca's area and Wernicke's area, underlie speech. Speech is the subject of study for linguistics, cognitive science, communication studies, psychology, computer science, speech pathology, otolaryngology, and acoustics.


title: Speech

text: Speech compares with written language, which may differ in its vocabulary, syntax, and phonetics from the spoken language, a situation called diglossia.


title: Speech

text: The evolutionary origins of speech are unknown and subject to much debate and speculation. While animals also communicate using vocalizations, and trained apes such as Washoe and Kanzi can use simple sign language, no animals' vocalizations are articulated phonemically and syntactically, and do not constitute speech.


title: Speech

text: Although related to the more general problem of the origin of language, the evolution of distinctively human speech capacities has become a distinct and in many ways separate area of scientific research. The topic is a separate one because language is not necessarily spoken: it can equally be written or signed. Speech is in this sense optional, although it is the default modality for language.


title: Speech

text: Monkeys, non-human apes and humans, like many other animals, have evolved specialised mechanisms for producing "sound" for purposes of social communication. On the other hand, no monkey or ape uses its "tongue" for such purposes. The human species' unprecedented use of the tongue, lips and other moveable parts seems to place speech in a quite separate category, making its evolutionary emergence an intriguing theoretical challenge in the eyes of many scholars.


title: Speech

text: Determining the timeline of human speech evolution is made additionally challenging by the lack of data in the fossil record. The human vocal tract does not fossilize, and indirect evidence of vocal tract changes in hominid fossils has proven inconclusive.


title: Speech

text: Speech production is an unconscious multi-step process by which thoughts are generated into spoken utterances. Production involves the unconscious mind selecting appropriate words and the appropriate form of those words from the lexicon and morphology, and the organization of those words through the syntax. Then, the phonetic properties of the words are retrieved and the sentence is articulated through the articulations associated with those phonetic properties.


title: Speech

text: In linguistics, articulatory phonetics is the study of how the tongue, lips, jaw, vocal cords, and other speech organs are used to make sounds. Speech sounds are categorized by manner of articulation and place of articulation. Place of articulation refers to where in the neck or mouth the airstream is constricted. Manner of articulation refers to the manner in which the speech organs interact, such as how closely the air is restricted, what form of airstream is used (e.g. pulmonic, implosive, ejectives, and clicks), whether or not the vocal cords are vibrating, and whether the nasal cavity is opened to the airstream. The concept is primarily used for the production of consonants, but can be used for vowels in qualities such as voicing and nasalization. For any place of articulation, there may be several manners of articulation, and therefore several homorganic consonants.


title: Speech

text: Normal human speech is pulmonic, produced with pressure from the lungs, which creates phonation in the glottis in the larynx, which is then modified by the vocal tract and mouth into different vowels and consonants. However humans can pronounce words without the use of the lungs and glottis in alaryngeal speech, of which there are three types: esophageal speech, pharyngeal speech and buccal speech (better known as Donald Duck talk).


title: Speech

text: Speech production is a complex activity, and as a consequence errors are common, especially in children. Speech errors come in many forms and are used to provide evidence to support hypotheses about the nature of speech. As a result, speech errors are often used in the construction of models for language production and child language acquisition. For example, the fact that children often make the error of over-regularizing the -ed past tense suffix in English (e.g. saying 'singed' instead of 'sang') shows that the regular forms are acquired earlier. Speech errors associated with certain kinds of aphasia have been used to map certain components of speech onto the brain and see the relation between different aspects of production; for example, the difficulty of expressive aphasia patients in producing regular past-tense verbs, but not irregulars like 'sing-sang' has been used to demonstrate that regular inflected forms of a word are not individually stored in the lexicon, but produced from affixation to the base form.


title: Speech

text: Speech perception refers to the processes by which humans can interpret and understand the sounds used in language. The study of speech perception is closely linked to the fields of phonetics and phonology in linguistics and cognitive psychology and perception in psychology. Research in speech perception seeks to understand how listeners recognize speech sounds and use this information to understand spoken language. Research into speech perception also has applications in building computer systems that can recognize speech, as well as improving speech recognition for hearing- and language-impaired listeners.


title: Speech

text: Speech perception is categorical, in that people put the sounds they hear into categories rather than perceiving them as a spectrum. People are more likely to be able to hear differences in sounds across categorical boundaries than within them. A good example of this is voice onset time (VOT), one aspect of the phonetic production of consonant sounds. For example, Hebrew speakers, who distinguish voiced /b/ from voiceless /p/, will more easily detect a change in VOT from -10 ( perceived as /b/ ) to 0 ( perceived as /p/ ) than a change in VOT from +10 to +20, or -10 to -20, despite this being an equally large change on the VOT spectrum.


title: Speech

text: Most human children develop proto-speech babbling behaviors when they are four to six months old. Most will begin saying their first words at some point during the first year of life. Typical children progress through two or three word phrases before they are three to short sentences by four years of age.


title: Speech

text: In speech repetition, speech being heard is quickly turned from sensory input into motor instructions needed for its immediate or delayed vocal imitation (in phonological memory). This type of mapping plays a key role in enabling children to expand their spoken vocabulary. Masur (1995) found that how often children repeat novel words versus those they already have in their lexicon is related to the size of their lexicon later on, with young children who repeat more novel words having a larger lexicon later in development. Speech repetition could help facilitate the acquisition of this larger lexicon.


title: Speech

text: Speech and language disorders can also result from stroke, brain injury, hearing loss, developmental delay, a cleft palate, cerebral palsy, or emotional issues.


title: Speech

text: Speech-related diseases, disorders, and conditions can be treated by a speech-language pathologist (SLP) or speech therapist. SLPs assess levels of speech needs, make diagnoses based on the assessments, and then treat the diagnoses or address the needs.


title: Speech

text: The classical or Wernicke-Geschwind model of the language system in the brain focuses on Broca's area in the inferior prefrontal cortex, and Wernicke's area in the posterior superior temporal gyrus on the dominant hemisphere of the brain (typically the left hemisphere for language). In this model, a linguistic auditory signal is first sent from the auditory cortex to Wernicke's area. The lexicon is accessed in Wernicke's area, and these words are sent via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca's area, where morphology, syntax, and instructions for articulation are generated. This is then sent from Broca's area to the motor cortex for articulation.


title: Speech

text: Paul Broca identified an approximate region of the brain in 1861 which, when damaged in two of his patients, caused severe deficits in speech production, where his patients were unable to speak beyond a few monosyllabic words. This deficit, known as Broca's or expressive aphasia, is characterized by difficulty in speech production where speech is slow and labored, function words are absent, and syntax is severely impaired, as in telegraphic speech. In expressive aphasia, speech comprehension is generally less affected except in the comprehension of grammatically complex sentences. Wernicke's area is named after Carl Wernicke, who in 1874 proposed a connection between damage to the posterior area of the left superior temporal gyrus and aphasia, as he noted that not all aphasic patients had had damage to the prefrontal cortex. Damage to Wernicke's area produces Wernicke's or receptive aphasia, which is characterized by relatively normal syntax and prosody but severe impairment in lexical access, resulting in poor comprehension and nonsensical or jargon speech.


title: Speech

text: Modern models of the neurological systems behind linguistic comprehension and production recognize the importance of Broca's and Wernicke's areas, but are not limited to them nor solely to the left hemisphere. Instead, multiple streams are involved in speech production and comprehension. Damage to the left lateral sulcus has been connected with difficulty in processing and producing morphology and syntax, while lexical access and comprehension of irregular forms (e.g. eat-ate) remain unaffected.


title: Speech

text: Moreover, the circuits involved in human speech comprehension dynamically adapt with learning, for example, by becoming more efficient in terms of processing time when listening to familiar messages such as learned verses.


title: Speech

text: Some non-human animals can produce sounds or gestures resembling those of a human language. Several species or groups of animals have developed forms of communication which superficially resemble verbal language, however, these usually are not considered a language because they lack one or more of the defining characteristics, e.g. grammar, syntax, recursion, and displacement. Researchers have been successful in teaching some animals to make gestures similar to sign language, although whether this should be considered a language has been disputed.


title: Downton Abbey (series 2)

text: The second series of the British historical drama television series "Downton Abbey" aired from 18 September 2011 to 6 November 2011, comprising a total of 8 episodes and one Christmas Special episode aired on 25 December 2011. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV, and in the United States on PBS, starting on 8 January 2012. Series 2 explored the lives of the Crawley family and servants during and after the First World War.


title: Downton Abbey (series 2)

text: Series 2 received widespread acclaim, with critics praising its cast, historical depictions, and story's arc. The viewing figures significantly increased compared with series 1, with an average of 11 million viewers per episode. The series was nominated for several industry awards, and won the TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials. Maggie Smith received critical praise for her performance as Violet Crawley, which earned her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.


title: Downton Abbey (series 2)

text: The second series covers the last two years of the war and the first year of peace. Events mentioned or directly affecting the Crawley household include the Battle of the Somme, the Easter Rising, the Battle of Arras, the Russian Revolution, the Battle of Passchendaele, the Battle of Amiens, the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, the Armistice, and the Spanish flu epidemic.


title: Downton Abbey (series 2)

text: On the domestic front there is a serious shortage of able-bodied men for home front jobs. Matthew Crawley and William Mason go off to fight, while Thomas Barrow joins the Medical Corps. Tom Branson, as an Irishman, won't fight for Britain. Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) returns to uniform, but is refused active service due to his age. Sybil Crawley (Jessica Brown Findlay) defies her aristocratic position and joins the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a nurse.


title: Downton Abbey (series 2)

text: A 46-minute documentary compiled in anticipation of the Christmas 2011 two-hour special broadcast, "Behind the Drama" features behind-the-scenes footage from the filming of the series and short interviews with Julian Fellowes, the writer, actors (Elizabeth McGovern, Joanne Froggatt, Brendan Coyle, Dan Stevens, Michelle Dockery, Jessica Brown Findlay, Laura Carmichael, Penelope Wilton, Phyllis Logan, Thomas Howes, Lesley Nicol, Sophie McShera, Allen Leech), and other members of the team that produces "Downton Abbey". It was shown in the United Kingdom at 7:30 pm on Wednesday 21 December 2011 and narrated by Hugh Bonneville. 4.5 million people watched the show.


title: Downton Abbey (series 2)

text: Filming began in March 2011. The scripts were written by series creator Julian Fellowes. Episodes were directed by Ashley Pearce, Andy Goddard, Brian Kelly and James Strong. Cal Macaninch, Iain Glen, Amy Nuttall, Zoe Boyle and Maria Doyle Kennedy joined the cast respectively as the new valet Lang, Sir Richard Carlisle, the new housemaid Ethel, Lavinia Swire and John Bates' wife Vera. Nigel Havers and Sharon Small appeared in the Christmas Special as Lord Hepworth and Marigold Shore, Rosamund Painswick's maid, respectively.


title: Downton Abbey (series 2)

text: Series two was highly acclaimed. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has fresh rating of 100% based on 24 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "With its excellent cast and resplendent period trappings, "Downton Abbey" continues to weave a bewitching, ingratiating spell." On Metacritic, the series 2 has a normalized score of 85 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "Universal Acclaim".


title: Downton Abbey (series 2)

text: The series generally received overwhelming reviews from critics. Linda Stasi of the "New York Post" wrote the second series "seamlessly moves between the horrors of war and the gentility of life in the show's titular 100-room manor." Writing for "TV Guide Magazine", Matt Roush said, "For those of us who hungered for a year to witness these new chapters, the appetite is insatiable." "The Wall Street Journal"s television critic Dorothy Rabinowitz said, "The vibrant brew of upstairs-downstairs relationships is more savory now, the characters more complicated." Robert Bianco of "USA Today" also lauded the series saying, "There's nothing in "Downton" you won't recognize, and almost nothing you won't enjoy." "Variety"s chief television critic Brian Lowry praised the series cast and said the creator had "created such a vivid group of characters and assembled such an impeccable cast--effortlessly oscillating from comedy to drama--that the hours fly by, addictively pulling viewers from one into the next." Tim Goodman of "The Hollywood Reporter" said, "The characters are so beautifully and thoroughly rendered that we, as viewers, are caught up in their lives." Robert Lioyd of the "Los Angeles Times" said, "It is big, beautiful, beautifully acted and romantic, its passions expressed with that particular British reserve that serves only to make them burn brighter."


title: Downton Abbey (series 2)

text: Some media outlets and critics were more critical towards the show. "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" TV critic Rob Owen wrote, "Writer/series creator Julian Fellowes weaves together an engrossing tapestry of stories, although some of them stretch credulity or peter out." Alessandra Stanley of "The New York Times" also gave the series moderate reviews by comparison to the first series and said, "Season 2 is in many ways as captivating and addictive as the first, but this time around, the series comes off as a shameless throwback to itself." In a moderate review, Maureen Ryan of "The Huffington Post" said, "Your investment in the many stories spun out by creator Julian Fellowes may take longer to develop this year, because the costume drama's pace is off in the early going and it's far more contrived and inconsistent than it was in its first season." In a less enthusiastic review for "The Washington Post", Hank Stuever quipped that the series, "lacks surprise and is stretched precariously thin, a house full of fascinating people with not nearly enough to do, all caught in a loop of weak storylines that circle round but never fully propel."


title: Alvin Lee

text: Alvin Lee (born Graham Anthony Barnes; 19 December 1944 – 6 March 2013) was an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lead guitarist of the blues rock band Ten Years After.


title: Alvin Lee

text: He was born in Nottingham and attended the Margaret Glen-Bott School in Wollaton. He began playing guitar at the age of 13. In 1960, Lee, along with bassist Leo Lyons, formed the core of the band Ten Years After. He was influenced by his parents' collection of jazz and blues records, but it was the advent of rock and roll that sparked his interest.


title: Alvin Lee

text: Lee's performance at the Woodstock Festival was captured on film in the documentary of the event, and his 'lightning-fast' playing helped catapult him to stardom. The film brought Lee's music to a worldwide audience, although he later lamented that he missed the lost freedom and spiritual dedication of earlier audiences.


title: Alvin Lee

text: Lee was named "the Fastest guitarist in the West", and considered a precursor to shred-style playing that would develop in the 1980s.


title: Alvin Lee

text: Ten Years After had success, releasing ten albums together, but by 1973, Lee was feeling limited by the band's style. Moving to Columbia Records had resulted in a radio hit song, "I'd Love to Change the World", but Lee preferred blues-rock to the pop to which the label steered them. He left the group after their second Columbia LP. With American Christian rock pioneer Mylon LeFevre, along with guests George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Ronnie Wood and Mick Fleetwood, he recorded and released "On the Road to Freedom", an acclaimed album that was at the forefront of country rock. Also in 1973, he sat in on the Jerry Lee Lewis double album "The Session...Recorded in London with Great Artists" recorded in London, featuring many other guest stars including Albert Lee, Peter Frampton and Rory Gallagher. A year later, in response to a dare, Lee formed Alvin Lee & Company to play a show at the Rainbow Theatre in London and released it as a double live album, "In Flight". Various members of the band continued on with Lee for his next two albums, "Pump Iron!" and "Let It Rock". In late 1975, he played guitar for a couple of tracks on Bo Diddley's "The 20th Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll" all-star album. He finished the 1970s with an outfit called Ten Years Later, with Tom Compton on drums and Mick Hawksworth on bass, which released two albums, "Rocket Fuel" (1978) and "Ride On" (1979), and toured extensively throughout Europe and the United States.


title: Alvin Lee

text: The 1980s brought another change in Lee's direction, with two albums that were collaborations with Rare Bird's Steve Gould, and a tour for which the former John Mayall and Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor joined his band.


title: Alvin Lee

text: Lee's overall musical output includes more than twenty albums, including 1987's "Detroit Diesel", 1989's "About Time" (the reunion album he did with Ten Years After) recorded in Memphis with producer Terry Manning, and the back to back 1990s collections of "Zoom" and "Nineteen Ninety-Four" (US title "I Hear You Rockin"'). Guest artists on both albums included George Harrison.


title: Alvin Lee

text: "In Tennessee", recorded with Scotty Moore and D. J. Fontana, was released in 2004. Lee's last album, "Still on the Road to Freedom", was released in September 2012.


title: Alvin Lee

text: Lee died on 6 March 2013 in Spain. He died from "unforeseen complications following a routine surgical procedure" to correct an atrial arrhythmia. He was 68. His former bandmates lamented his death. Leo Lyons called him "the closest thing I had to a brother", while Ric Lee (no relation) said "I don't think it's even sunk in yet as to the reality of his passing". "Billboard" highlighted such landmark performances as "I'm Going Home" from the Woodstock festival and his 1971 hit single "I'd Love to Change the World".


title: T-15 Armata

text: The T-15 Armata (), with industrial designation "Object 149", is a Russian heavy infantry fighting vehicle first seen in public (initially with its turret covered) in 2015 during rehearsals for the Moscow Victory Day Parade. The T-15 is expected to replace the BMP-2 and MT-LB based platforms of the Russian Ground Forces.


title: T-15 Armata

text: The infantry fighting vehicle concept was first conceived of in the 1960s during the Cold War, where a confrontation between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries was expected to be dominated by tanks, so infantry required transport to sustain the pace of advance while having armament to fight tanks, and armor to withstand machine gun and artillery fire; the Soviet Union created the BMP-1/BMP-2 and the United States the M2 Bradley. While IFVs provided troops with heavier mounted firepower, the prevalence of anti-tank rockets and guided missiles made it uneconomical to protect them from such weapons. Post-Cold War, rather than maneuver warfare, most fighting took place in urban areas, such as what the Russians experienced in Grozny. While heavy losses can be tolerated in a near-peer conflict, the ease at which insurgent ambushes using anti-tank weaponry can inflict casualties by targeting IFVs has become an issue for IFV operators. In an effort to field better protected troop carriers, some countries have experimented with converting tank hulls to carry dismounted infantry, such as Israel with the Namer.


title: T-15 Armata

text: The Russian T-15 is based on the T-14 tank hull, with its engine relocated to the front to accommodate a passenger compartment in the rear. This adjusted engine position provides additional crew protection against frontal attacks. Passenger capacity is estimated at between seven and nine troops. At 48 tons, the vehicle is slightly heavier than the T-90 main battle tank. It has several features, including a built-in entrenching blade and the T-14's numerous cameras and sensors.


title: T-15 Armata

text: Like the T-14, the T-15 is based on the Armata Universal Combat Platform, but unlike the T-14 it has its engine in the front. It is powered by a new generation 1,500 hp multifuel diesel engine coupled with a hydro-mechanical automatic transmission, has a combat weight of about 48 tons, a maximum road speed of , an operational range of , and a power-to-weight ratio of over 30 h.p./t.


title: T-15 Armata

text: Like the T-14, the T-15 is protected by reactive armour and the "Afganit" () active protection system. While the T-14 has its "Afganit" launch tubes at the base of its turret, the T-15 has them arrayed along the top sides of its hull. It uses four soft-kill launchers to deploy smoke grenades that disrupt visual and infrared guidance systems, and five hard-kill launch tubes on top of the hull, compared to the T-14's ten hard-kill tubes on the turret which automatically turns to face a threat.


title: T-15 Armata

text: The T-15 has "an unprecedented level of armor protection," including improved passive steel and ceramic composite plate armor and a slat armor cage at the rear. Its new "Malakhit" (Malachite) explosive reactive armour (ERA) is claimed to protect against ATGMs like the FGM-148 Javelin, Missile Moyenne Portée (MMP), 120 mm tank rounds like the German DM53/DM63, and American M829A3 armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) (see Sabot (firearms)). In addition to hard-kill and soft-kill APS, the developer uses a special paint that significantly reduces the vehicle's infrared signature.


title: T-15 Armata

text: The floor is reinforced with an added armor plate to protect against land mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It also has a radar jamming and deception system to detonate radio-controlled anti-tank mines, and an NBC protection system.


title: Between Scylla and Charybdis

text: Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, which has been associated with the proverbial advice "to choose the lesser of two evils". Several other idioms, such as "on the horns of a dilemma", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place" express similar meanings. The mythical situation also developed a proverbial use in which seeking to choose between equally dangerous extremes is seen as leading inevitably to disaster.


title: Between Scylla and Charybdis

text: Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer; Greek mythology sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Calabria, on the Italian mainland. Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal (described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Calabrian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. They were regarded as maritime hazards located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer's account, Odysseus was advised to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool.


title: Between Scylla and Charybdis

text: Because of such stories, the bad result of having to navigate between the two hazards eventually entered proverbial use. Erasmus recorded it in his "Adagia" (1515) under the Latin form of "evitata Charybdi in Scyllam incidi" (having escaped Charybdis I fell into Scylla) and also provided a Greek equivalent. After relating the Homeric account and reviewing other connected uses, he went on to explain that the proverb could be applied in three different ways. In circumstances where there is no escape without some cost, the correct course is to "choose the lesser of two evils". Alternatively it may signify that the risks are equally great, whatever one does. A third use is in circumstances where a person has gone too far in avoiding one extreme and has tumbled into its opposite. In this context Erasmus quoted another line that had become proverbial, "incidit in Scyllam cupiēns vītāre Charybdem" (into Scylla he fell, wishing to avoid Charybdis). This final example was a line from the "Alexandreis", a 12th-century Latin epic poem by Walter of Châtillon.


title: Between Scylla and Charybdis

text: The myth was later given an allegorical interpretation by the French poet Barthélemy Aneau in his emblem book "Picta Poesis" (1552). There one is advised, much in the spirit of the commentary of Erasmus, that the risk of being envied for wealth or reputation is preferable to being swallowed by the Charybdis of poverty: "Choose the lesser of these evils. A wise man would rather be envied than miserable." Erasmus too had associated the proverb about choosing the lesser of two evils, as well as Walter of Châtillon’s line, with the Classical adage. A later English translation glossed the adage's meaning with a third proverb, that of "falling, as we say, out of the frying pan into the fire, in which form the proverb has been adopted by the French, the Italians and the Spanish." "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" also treated the English proverb as an established equivalent of the allusion to falling from Scylla into Charybdis.


title: Between Scylla and Charybdis

text: The story was often applied to political situations at a later date. In James Gillray's cartoon, "Britannia between Scylla and Charybdis" (3 June 1793), 'William Pitt helms the ship "Constitution", containing an alarmed Britannia, between the rock of democracy (with the liberty cap on its summit) and the whirlpool of arbitrary power (in the shape of an inverted crown), to the distant haven of liberty'. This was in the context of the effect of the French Revolution on politics in Britain. That the dilemma had still to be resolved in the aftermath of the revolution is suggested by Percy Bysshe Shelley's returning to the idiom in his 1820 essay "A Defence of Poetry": "The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer; and the vessel of the state is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism."


title: Between Scylla and Charybdis

text: A later "Punch" caricature by John Tenniel, dated 10 October 1863, pictures the prime minister Lord Palmerston carefully steering the British ship of state between the perils of Scylla, a craggy rock in the form of a grim-visaged Abraham Lincoln, and Charybdis, a whirlpool which foams and froths into a likeness of Jefferson Davis. A shield emblazoned "Neutrality" hangs on the ship's thwarts, referring to how Palmerston tried to maintain a strict impartiality towards both combatants in the American Civil War. American satirical magazine "Puck" also used the myth in a caricature by F. Graetz, dated November 26, 1884, in which the unmarried president-elect Grover Cleveland rows desperately between snarling monsters captioned "Mother-in-law" and "Office Seekers".


title: Between Scylla and Charybdis

text: Victor Hugo uses the equivalent French idiom ("tomber de Charybde en Scylla") in his novel "Les Misérables" (1862), again in a political context, as a metaphor for the staging of two rebel barricades during the climactic uprising in Paris, around which the final events of the book culminate. The first chapter of the final volume is entitled "The Charybdis of the Faubourg Saint Antoine and the Scylla of the Faubourg du Temple".


title: Between Scylla and Charybdis

text: By the time of Nicholas Monsarrat's 1951 war novel, "The Cruel Sea", however, the upper-class junior officer, Morell, is teased by his middle-class peer, Lockhart, for using such a phrase. Nevertheless, the idiom has since taken on new life in pop lyrics. In The Police's 1983 single "Wrapped Around Your Finger", the second line uses it as a metaphor for being in a dangerous relationship; this is reinforced by a later mention of the similar idiom of "the devil and the deep blue sea". American heavy metal band Trivium also referenced the idiom in "Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis", a track from their 2008 album "Shogun", in which the lyrics are about having to choose "between death and doom".


title: Between Scylla and Charybdis

text: In 2014 Graham Waterhouse composed a piano quartet, "Skylla and Charybdis", premiered at the Gasteig in Munich. According to his programme note, though its four movements "do not refer specifically to the protagonists or to events connected with the famous legend", their dynamic is linked subjectively to images connected with it "conjoured up in the composer's mind during the writing".


title: The Rolling Stones (album)

text: The Rolling Stones is the debut studio album by the English rock band of the same name, released by Decca Records in the UK on 16 April 1964. The American edition of the LP, with a slightly different track list, came out on London Records on 30 May 1964, subtitled England's Newest Hit Makers, which later became its official title.


title: The Rolling Stones (album)

text: Recorded at Regent Sound Studios in London over the course of five days in January and February 1964, "The Rolling Stones" was produced by then-managers Andrew Loog Oldham and Eric Easton. The album was originally released by Decca Records in the UK, while the US version appeared on the London Records label.


title: The Rolling Stones (album)

text: The majority of the tracks reflect the band's love for R&B. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (whose professional name until 1978 omitted the "s" in his surname) were fledgling songwriters during early 1964, contributing only one original composition to the album: "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)". Two songs are credited to "Nanker Phelge" – a pseudonym the band used for group compositions from 1963 to 1965. Phil Spector and Gene Pitney both contributed to the recording sessions, and are referred to as "Uncle Phil and Uncle Gene" in the subtitle of the Phelge instrumental "Now I've Got a Witness".


title: The Rolling Stones (album)

text: First pressings of the album, with matrix numbers ending in 1A, 2A, 1B, and 2B, have a 2:52 version of "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)", which was pressed from the wrong master tape. Subsequent pressings include the 4:06 version. Early labels and covers also have misprints with the fourth track on side 1 listed as "Mona", which was later changed to "I Need You Baby"", the subtitle of "Now I've Got a Witness" written "Like Uncle Gene and Uncle Phil", the word 'If' omitted from "You Can Make It If You Try", and 'Dozier' spelt 'Bozier'. "Route 66" is listed as "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66" on some versions of the album, and some later versions of the album have "I Need You Baby" listed as "Mona (I Need You Baby)" and the subtitles of "Now I've Got a Witness" and "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)" removed entirely.


title: The Rolling Stones (album)

text: The album cover photo was taken by Nicholas Wright. The cover bears no title or identifying information other than the photo and the Decca logo – an "unheard of" design concept originated by manager Andrew Oldham.


title: The Rolling Stones (album)

text: Upon its release, "The Rolling Stones" became one of 1964's biggest sellers in the UK, staying at No. 1 for twelve weeks.


title: The Rolling Stones (album)

text: The original British version of the album was released on compact disc in 1984, but became out-of-print on CD for many years afterwards. In November 2010, it was made available as part of a limited edition vinyl box set titled "The Rolling Stones 1964–1969", and by itself digitally at the same time. The original title was also re-instated as part of the "Rolling Stones in Mono" CD box set, released on 30 September 2016. The album was only released in mono in both the UK and US; no true stereo mix was ever made.


title: The Rolling Stones (album)

text: The US version of the album, originally self-titled but later officially called "England's Newest Hit Makers", was the band's debut US album and was released by London Records on 30 May 1964, a month and a half after the British version. The track "Not Fade Away" (the A-side of the band's third UK single) replaced "I Need You Baby", and the titles of the tracks "Now I've Got a Witness (Like Uncle Phil and Uncle Gene)" and "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)" were shortened to "Now I've Got a Witness" and "Tell Me" on most versions of the American release. Upon its release, "The Rolling Stones" reached No. 11 in the US, going gold in the process. To date, this is the Stones' only American studio album that has failed to place in the top five on the "Billboard" album charts. In August 2002, the album, by now officially called "England's Newest Hit Makers", was reissued as a new remastered CD and SACD Digipak by ABKCO.


title: The Rolling Stones (album)

text: The album was included in Robert Dimery's "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" (2010). Sean Egan of BBC Music wrote of the record in 2012: "It's a testament to the group's brilliance that the result was still the best album to emerge from the early 1960s British blues boom … the ensemble lovingly deliver some of their favourite shots of rhythm 'n' blues." It was voted number 418 in Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums".


The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, also known as simply the March on Washington or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. At the march, final speaker Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism.


title: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

text: The march was organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, who built an alliance of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations that came together under the banner of "jobs and freedom." Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000, but the most widely cited estimate is 250,000 people. Observers estimated that 75–80% of the marchers were black. The march was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history. Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, was the most integral and highest-ranking white organizer of the march.


text: The march is credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It preceded the Selma Voting Rights Movement, when national media coverage contributed to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that same year.


text: African Americans were legally freed from slavery under the Thirteenth Amendment and granted citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment, and African American men were elevated to the status of citizens and granted full voting rights by the Fifteenth Amendment in the years soon after the end of the American Civil War, but conservative Democrats regained power after the end of the Reconstruction era (in 1877) and imposed many restrictions on people of color in the South. At the turn of the century, Southern states passed constitutions and laws that disenfranchised most black people and many poor whites, excluding them from the political system. The whites imposed social, economic, and political repression against black people into the 1960s, under a system of legal discrimination known as Jim Crow laws, which were pervasive in the American South. Black people suffered discrimination from private businesses as well, and most were prevented from voting, sometimes through violent means. Twenty-one states prohibited interracial marriage.


text: During the 20th century, civil rights organizers began to develop ideas for a march on Washington, DC, to seek justice. Earlier efforts to organize such a demonstration included the March on Washington Movement of the 1940s. A. Philip Randolph—the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, president of the Negro American Labor Council, and vice president of the AFL–CIO—was a key instigator in 1941. With Bayard Rustin, Randolph called for 100,000 black workers to march on Washington, in protest of discriminatory hiring during World War II by U.S. military contractors and demanding an Executive Order to correct that. Faced with a mass march scheduled for July 1, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25. The order established the Committee on Fair Employment Practice and banned discriminatory hiring in the defense industry, leading to improvements for many defense workers. Randolph called off the March.


text: Randolph and Rustin continued to organize around the idea of a mass march on Washington. They envisioned several large marches during the 1940s, but all were called off (despite criticism from Rustin). Their Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, held at the Lincoln Memorial on May 17, 1957, featured key leaders including Adam Clayton Powell, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Roy Wilkins. Mahalia Jackson performed.


text: The 1963 march was part of the rapidly expanding Civil Rights Movement, which involved demonstrations and nonviolent direct action across the United States. 1963 marked the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln. Leaders represented major civil rights organizations. Members of The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference put aside their differences and came together for the march. Many whites and black people also came together in the urgency for change in the nation.


text: That year violent confrontations broke out in the South: in Cambridge, Maryland; Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Goldsboro, North Carolina; Somerville, Tennessee; Saint Augustine, Florida; and across Mississippi. In most cases, white people attacked nonviolent demonstrators seeking civil rights. Many people wanted to march on Washington, but disagreed over how the march should be conducted. Some called for a complete shutdown of the city through civil disobedience. Others argued that the civil rights movement should remain nationwide in scope, rather than focus its energies on the nation's capital and federal government. There was a widespread perception that the Kennedy administration had not lived up to its promises in the 1960 election, and King described Kennedy's race policy as "tokenism".


text: On May 24, 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy invited African-American novelist James Baldwin, along with a large group of cultural leaders, to a meeting in New York to discuss race relations. However, the meeting became antagonistic, as black delegates felt that Kennedy did not have an adequate understanding of the race problem in the nation. The public failure of the meeting, which came to be known as the Baldwin–Kennedy meeting, underscored the divide between the needs of Black America and the understanding of Washington politicians. But the meeting also provoked the Kennedy administration to take action on the civil rights for African Americans. On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy gave a notable civil rights address on national television and radio, announcing that he would begin to push for civil rights legislation. After his assassination, his proposal was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That night (early morning of June 12, 1963), Mississippi activist Medgar Evers was murdered in his own driveway, further escalating national tension around the issue of racial inequality.


text: A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin began planning the march in December 1961. They envisioned two days of protest, including sit-ins and lobbying followed by a mass rally at the Lincoln Memorial. They wanted to focus on joblessness and to call for a public works program that would employ black people. In early 1963 they called publicly for "a massive March on Washington for jobs". They received help from Stanley Aronowitz of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers; he gathered support from radical organizers who could be trusted not to report their plans to the Kennedy administration. The unionists offered tentative support for a march that would be focused on jobs.


text: On May 15, 1963, without securing the cooperation of the NAACP or the Urban League, Randolph announced an "October Emancipation March on Washington for Jobs". He reached out to union leaders, winning the support of the UAW's Walter Reuther, but not of AFL–CIO president George Meany. Randolph and Rustin intended to focus the March on economic inequality, stating in their original plan that "integration in the fields of education, housing, transportation and public accommodations will be of limited extent and duration so long as fundamental economic inequality along racial lines persists." As they negotiated with other leaders, they expanded their stated objectives to "Jobs and Freedom", to acknowledge the agenda of groups that focused more on civil rights.


text: In June 1963, leaders from several different organizations formed the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, an umbrella group to coordinate funds and messaging. This coalition of leaders, who became known as the "Big Six", included: Randolph, chosen as titular head of the march; James Farmer, president of the Congress of Racial Equality; John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Roy Wilkins, president of the NAACP; and Whitney Young, president of the National Urban League. King in particular had become well known for his role in the Birmingham campaign and for his Letter from Birmingham Jail. Wilkins and Young initially objected to Rustin as a leader for the march, worried that he would attract the wrong attention because he was a homosexual, a former Communist, and a draft resister. They eventually accepted Rustin as deputy organizer, on the condition that Randolph act as lead organizer and manage any political fallout.


text: About two months before the march, the Big Six broadened their organizing coalition by bringing on board four white men who supported their efforts: Walter Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers; Eugene Carson Blake, former president of the National Council of Churches; Mathew Ahmann, executive director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice; and Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress. Together, the Big Six plus four became known as the "Big Ten." John Lewis later recalled, "Somehow, some way, we worked well together. The six of us, plus the four. We became like brothers."


text: On June 22, the organizers met with President Kennedy, who warned against creating "an atmosphere of intimidation" by bringing a large crowd to Washington. The civil rights activists insisted on holding the march. Wilkins pushed for the organizers to rule out civil disobedience and described this proposal as the "perfect compromise". King and Young agreed. Leaders from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), who wanted to conduct direct actions against the Department of Justice, endorsed the protest before they were informed that civil disobedience would not be allowed. Finalized plans for the March were announced in a press conference on July 2. President Kennedy spoke favorably of the March on July 17, saying that organizers planned a peaceful assembly and had cooperated with the Washington, D.C., police.


text: Mobilization and logistics were administered by Rustin, a civil rights veteran and organizer of the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, the first of the Freedom Rides to test the Supreme Court ruling that banned racial discrimination in interstate travel. Rustin was a long-time associate of both Randolph and Dr. King. With Randolph concentrating on building the march's political coalition, Rustin built and led the team of two hundred activists and organizers who publicized the march and recruited the marchers, coordinated the buses and trains, provided the marshals, and set up and administered all of the logistic details of a mass march in the nation's capital. During the days leading up to the march, these 200 volunteers used the ballroom of Washington DC radio station WUST as their operations headquarters.


text: The march was not universally supported among civil rights activists. Some, including Rustin (who assembled 4,000 volunteer marshals from New York), were concerned that it might turn violent, which could undermine pending legislation and damage the international image of the movement. The march was condemned by Malcolm X, spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, who termed it the "farce on Washington".


text: March organizers disagreed about the purpose of the march. The NAACP and Urban League saw it as a gesture of support for the civil rights bill that had been introduced by the Kennedy Administration. Randolph, King, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) believed it could raise both civil rights and economic issues to national attention beyond the Kennedy bill. CORE and SNCC believed the march could challenge and condemn the Kennedy administration's inaction and lack of support for civil rights for African Americans.


text: Although in years past, Randolph had supported "Negro only" marches, partly to reduce the impression that the civil rights movement was dominated by white communists, organizers in 1963 agreed that white and black people marching side by side would create a more powerful image.


text: The Kennedy Administration cooperated with the organizers in planning the March, and one member of the Justice Department was assigned as a full-time liaison. Chicago and New York City (as well as some corporations) agreed to designate August 28 as "Freedom Day" and give workers the day off.


text: To avoid being perceived as radical, organizers rejected support from Communist groups. However, some politicians claimed that the March was Communist-inspired, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) produced numerous reports suggesting the same. In the days before August 28, the FBI called celebrity backers to inform them of the organizers' communist connections and advising them to withdraw their support. When William C. Sullivan produced a lengthy report on August 23 suggesting that Communists had failed to appreciably infiltrate the civil rights movement, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover rejected its contents. Strom Thurmond launched a prominent public attack on the March as Communist, and singled out Rustin in particular as a Communist and a gay man.


text: Organizers worked out of a building at West 130th St. and Lenox in Harlem. They promoted the march by selling buttons, featuring two hands shaking, the words "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom", a union bug, and the date August 28, 1963. By August 2, they had distributed 42,000 of the buttons. Their goal was a crowd of at least 100,000 people.


text: As the march was being planned, activists across the country received bomb threats at their homes and in their offices. The "Los Angeles Times" received a message saying its headquarters would be bombed unless it printed a message calling the president a "Nigger Lover". Five airplanes were grounded on the morning of August 28 due to bomb threats. A man in Kansas City telephoned the FBI to say he would put a hole between King's eyes; the FBI did not respond. Roy Wilkins was threatened with assassination if he did not leave the country.


text: Thousands traveled by road, rail, and air to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, August 28. Marchers from Boston traveled overnight and arrived in Washington at 7am after an eight-hour trip, but others took much longer bus rides from cities such as Milwaukee, Little Rock, and St. Louis. Organizers persuaded New York's MTA to run extra subway trains after midnight on August 28, and the New York City bus terminal was busy throughout the night with peak crowds. A total of 450 buses left New York City from Harlem. Maryland police reported that "by 8:00 a.m., 100 buses an hour were streaming through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel." The United Automobile Workers financed bus transportation for 5,000 of its rank-and-file members, providing the largest single contingent from any organization.


text: One reporter, Fred Powledge, accompanied African Americans who boarded six buses in Birmingham, Alabama, for the 750-mile trip to Washington. The "New York Times" carried his report:


text: The 260 demonstrators, of all ages, carried picnic baskets, water jugs, Bibles and a major weapon—their willingness to march, sing and pray in protest against discrimination. They gathered early this morning [August 27] in Birmingham's Kelly Ingram Park, where state troopers once [four months previous in May] used fire hoses and dogs to put down their demonstrations. It was peaceful in the Birmingham park as the marchers waited for the buses. The police, now part of a moderate city power structure, directed traffic around the square and did not interfere with the gathering ... An old man commented on the 20-hour ride, which was bound to be less than comfortable: "You forget we Negroes have been riding buses all our lives. We don't have the money to fly in airplanes."


text: Contrary to the mythology, the early moments of the March—getting there—was no picnic. People were afraid. We didn't know what we would meet. There was no precedent. Sitting across from me was a black preacher with a white collar. He was an AME preacher. We talked. Every now and then, people on the bus sang 'Oh Freedom' and 'We Shall Overcome,' but for the most part there wasn't a whole bunch of singing. We were secretly praying that nothing violent happened.


text: Other bus rides featured racial tension, as black activists criticized liberal white participants as fair-weather friends.


text: Hazel Mangle Rivers, who had paid $8 for her ticket—"one-tenth of her husband's weekly salary"—was quoted in the August 29 "New York Times". Rivers said that she was impressed by Washington's civility:


text: The people are lots better up here than they are down South. They treat you much nicer. Why, when I was out there at the march a white man stepped on my foot, and he said, "Excuse me," and I said "Certainly!" That's the first time that has ever happened to me. I believe that was the first time a white person has ever really been nice to me.


text: Some participants who arrived early held an all-night vigil outside the Department of Justice, claiming it had unfairly targeted civil rights activists and that it had been too lenient on white supremacists who attacked them.


text: The Washington, D.C., police forces were mobilized to full capacity for the march, including reserve officers and deputized firefighters. A total of 5,900 police officers were on duty. The government mustered 2,000 men from the National Guard, and brought in 3,000 outside soldiers to join the 1,000 already stationed in the area. These additional soldiers were flown in on helicopters from bases in Virginia and North Carolina. The Pentagon readied 19,000 troops in the suburbs. All of the forces involved were prepared to implement a coordinated conflict strategy named "Operation Steep Hill".


text: For the first time since Prohibition, liquor sales were banned in Washington D.C. Hospitals stockpiled blood plasma and cancelled elective surgeries. Major League Baseball cancelled two games between the Minnesota Twins and the last place Washington Senators although the venue, D.C. Stadium, was nearly four miles from the Lincoln Memorial rally site.


text: Rustin and Walter Fauntroy negotiated some security issues with the government, gaining approval for private marshals with the understanding that these would not be able to act against outside agitators. The FBI and Justice Department refused to provide preventive guards for buses traveling through the South to reach D.C. William Johnson recruited more than 1,000 police officers to serve on this private force. Julius Hobson, an FBI informant who served on the March's security force, told the team to be on the lookout for FBI infiltrators who might act as agents provocateurs. Jerry Bruno, President Kennedy's advance man, was positioned to cut the power to the public address system in the event of any incendiary rally speech.


text: The organizers originally planned to hold the march outside the Capitol Building. However, Reuther persuaded them to move the march to the Lincoln Memorial. He believed the Lincoln Memorial would be less threatening to Congress and the occasion would be appropriate underneath the gaze of President Abraham Lincoln's statue. The committee, notably Rustin, agreed to move the site on the condition that Reuther pay for a $19,000 (equivalent to $172,500 in 2021) sound system so that everyone on the National Mall could hear the speakers and musicians.


text: Rustin pushed hard for the expensive sound system, maintaining that "We cannot maintain order where people cannot hear." The system was obtained and set up at the Lincoln Memorial, but was sabotaged on the day before the March. Its operators were unable to repair it. Fauntroy contacted Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and his civil rights liaison Burke Marshall, demanding that the government fix the system. Fauntroy reportedly told them: "We have a couple hundred thousand people coming. Do you want a fight here tomorrow after all we've done?" The system was successfully rebuilt overnight by the U.S. Army Signal Corps.


text: The march commanded national attention by preempting regularly scheduled television programs. As the first ceremony of such magnitude ever initiated and dominated by African Americans, the march also was the first to have its nature wholly misperceived in advance. Dominant expectations ran from paternal apprehension to dread. On "Meet the Press", reporters grilled Roy Wilkins and Martin Luther King Jr. about widespread foreboding that "it would be impossible to bring more than 100,000 militant Negroes into Washington without incidents and possibly rioting." "Life" magazine declared that the capital was suffering "its worst case of invasion jitters since the First Battle of Bull Run." The jails shifted inmates to other prisons to make room for those arrested in mass arrest. With nearly 1,700 extra correspondents supplementing the Washington press corps, the march drew a media assembly larger than the Kennedy inauguration two years earlier. Students from the University of California, Berkeley came together as black power organizations and emphasized the importance of the African-American freedom struggle. The march included black political parties; and William Worthy was one of many who led college students during the freedom struggle era.


text: On August 28, more than 2,000 buses, 21 chartered trains, 10 chartered airliners, and uncounted cars converged on Washington. All regularly scheduled planes, trains, and buses were also filled to capacity.


text: Although Randolph and Rustin had originally planned to fill the streets of Washington, D.C., the final route of the March covered only half of the National Mall. The march began at the Washington Monument and was scheduled to progress to the Lincoln Memorial. Demonstrators were met at the monument by the speakers and musicians. Women leaders were asked to march down Independence Avenue, while the male leaders marched on Pennsylvania Avenue with the media.


text: The start of the March was delayed because its leaders were meeting with members of Congress. To the leaders' surprise, the assembled group began to march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial without them. The leaders met the March at Constitution Avenue, where they linked arms at the head of a crowd in order to be photographed 'leading the march'.


text: Marchers were not supposed to create their own signs, though this rule was not completely enforced by marshals. Most of the demonstrators did carry pre-made signs, available in piles at the Washington Monument. The UAW provided thousands of signs that, among other things, read: "There Is No Halfway House on the Road to Freedom," "Equal Rights and Jobs NOW," "UAW Supports Freedom March," "in Freedom we are Born, in Freedom we must Live," and "Before we'll be a Slave, we'll be Buried in our Grave."


text: About 50 members of the American Nazi Party staged a counter-protest and were quickly dispersed by police. The rest of Washington was quiet during the March. Most non-participating workers stayed home. Jailers allowed inmates to watch the March on TV.


text: Representatives from each of the sponsoring organizations addressed the crowd from the podium at the Lincoln Memorial. Speakers (dubbed "The Big Ten") included The Big Six; three religious leaders (Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish); and labor leader Walter Reuther. None of the official speeches was by a woman. Dancer and actress Josephine Baker gave a speech during the preliminary offerings, but women were limited in the official program to a "tribute" led by Bayard Rustin, at which Daisy Bates also spoke briefly (see "excluded speakers" below.)


text: Floyd McKissick read James Farmer's speech because Farmer had been arrested during a protest in Louisiana; Farmer wrote that the protests would not stop "until the dogs stop biting us in the South and the rats stop biting us in the North."


text: Closing remarks were made by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, March Organizers, leading with The Pledge and a list of demands.


text: Noted singer Marian Anderson was scheduled to lead the National Anthem but was unable to arrive on time; Camilla Williams performed in her place. Following an invocation by Washington's Roman Catholic Archbishop Patrick O'Boyle, the opening remarks were given by march director A. Philip Randolph, followed by Eugene Carson Blake.


text: A tribute to "Negro Women Fighters for Freedom" was led by Bayard Rustin, at which Daisy Bates spoke briefly in place of Myrlie Evers, who had missed her flight. The tribute introduced Daisy Bates, Diane Nash, Prince E. Lee, Rosa Parks, and Gloria Richardson.


text: Following that, speakers were SNCC chairman John Lewis, labor leader Walter Reuther, and CORE chairman Floyd McKissick (substituting for arrested CORE director James Farmer). The Eva Jessye Choir sang, and Rabbi Uri Miller (president of the Synagogue Council of America) offered a prayer. He was followed by National Urban League director Whitney Young, NCCIJ director Mathew Ahmann, and NAACP leader Roy Wilkins. After a performance by singer Mahalia Jackson, American Jewish Congress president Joachim Prinz spoke, followed by SCLC president Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Rustin read the March's official demands for the crowd's approval, and Randolph led the crowd in a pledge to continue working for the March's goals. The program was closed with a benediction by Morehouse College president Benjamin Mays.


text: Although one of the officially stated purposes of the march was to support the civil rights bill introduced by the Kennedy Administration, several of the speakers criticized the proposed law as insufficient. Two government agents stood by in a position to cut power to the microphone if necessary.


text: Roy Wilkins announced that sociologist and activist W. E. B. Du Bois had died in Ghana the previous night, where he had been living in exile; the crowd observed a moment of silence in his memory. Wilkins had initially refused to announce the news because he despised Du Bois for becoming a Communist—but insisted on making the announcement when he realized that Randolph would make it if he didn't. Wilkins said: "Regardless of the fact that in his later years Dr. Du Bois chose another path, it is incontrovertible that at the dawn of the twentieth century his was the voice that was calling you to gather here today in this cause. If you want to read something that applies to 1963 go back and get a volume of "The Souls of Black Folk" by Du Bois, published in 1903."


text: John Lewis of SNCC was the youngest speaker at the event. He planned to criticize the Kennedy Administration for the inadequacies of the Civil Rights Act of 1963. Other leaders insisted that the speech be changed to be less antagonistic to the government. James Forman and other SNCC activists contributed to the revision. It still complained that the Administration had not done enough to protect southern black people and civil rights workers from physical violence by whites in the Deep South. Deleted from his original speech at the insistence of more conservative and pro-Kennedy leaders were phrases such as:


text: Lewis' speech was distributed to fellow organizers the evening before the march; Reuther, O'Boyle, and others thought it was too divisive and militant. O'Boyle objected most strenuously to a part of the speech that called for immediate action and disavowed "patience." The government and moderate organizers could not countenance Lewis's explicit opposition to Kennedy's civil rights bill. That night, O'Boyle and other members of the Catholic delegation began preparing a statement announcing their withdrawal from the March. Reuther convinced them to wait and called Rustin; Rustin informed Lewis at 2 A.M. on the day of the march that his speech was unacceptable to key coalition members. (Rustin also reportedly contacted Tom Kahn, mistakenly believing that Kahn had edited the speech and inserted the line about Sherman's March to the Sea. Rustin asked, "How could you do this? Do you know what Sherman "did"?) But Lewis did not want to change the speech. Other members of SNCC, including Stokely Carmichael, were also adamant that the speech not be censored. The dispute continued until minutes before the speeches were scheduled to begin. Under threat of public denouncement by the religious leaders, and under pressure from the rest of his coalition, Lewis agreed to omit the 'inflammatory' passages. Many activists from SNCC, CORE, and SCLC were angry at what they considered censorship of Lewis's speech. In the end, Lewis added a qualified endorsement of Kennedy's civil rights legislation, saying: "It is true that we support the administration's Civil Rights Bill. We support it with great reservation, however." Even after toning down his speech, Lewis called for activists to "get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes".


text: The speech given by SCLC president King, who spoke last, became known as the "I Have a Dream" speech, which was carried live by TV stations and subsequently considered the most impressive moment of the march. In it, King called for an end to racism in the United States. It invoked the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the United States Constitution. At the end of the speech, Mahalia Jackson shouted from the crowd, "Tell them about the dream, Martin!", and King departed from his prepared text for a partly improvised peroration on the theme of "I have a dream". Over time it has been hailed as a masterpiece of rhetoric, added to the National Recording Registry and memorialized by the National Park Service with an inscription on the spot where King stood to deliver the speech.


text: A. Philip Randolph spoke first, promising: "we shall return again and again to Washington in ever growing numbers until total freedom is ours." Randolph also closed the event along with Bayard Rustin. Rustin followed King's speech by slowly reading the list of demands. The two concluded by urging attendees to take various actions in support of the struggle.


text: Walter Reuther urged Americans to pressure their politicians to act to address racial injustices. He said,


text: American democracy is on trial in the eyes of the world ... We cannot successfully preach democracy in the world unless we first practice democracy at home. American democracy will lack the moral credentials and be both unequal to and unworthy of leading the forces of freedom against the forces of tyranny unless we take bold, affirmative, adequate steps to bridge the moral gap between American democracy's noble promises and its ugly practices in the field of civil rights.


text: According to Irving Bluestone, who was standing near the platform while Reuther delivered his remarks, he overheard two black women talking. One asked, "Who is that white man?" The other replied, "Don't you know him? That's the white Martin Luther King."


text: Author James Baldwin was prevented from speaking at the March on the grounds that his comments would be too inflammatory. Baldwin later commented on the irony of the "terrifying and profound" requests that he prevent the March from happening:


text: In my view, by that time, there was, on the one hand, nothing to prevent—the March had already been co-opted—and, on the other, no way of stopping the people from descending on Washington. What struck me most horribly was that virtually no one in power (including some blacks or Negroes who were somewhere next door to power) was able, even remotely, to accept the depth, the dimension, of the passion and the faith of the people.


text: Despite the protests of organizer Anna Arnold Hedgeman, no women gave a speech at the March. Male organizers attributed this omission to the "difficulty of finding a single woman to speak without causing serious problems vis-à-vis other women and women's groups". Hedgeman read a statement at an August 16 meeting, charging:


text: In light of the role of Negro women in the struggle for freedom and especially in light of the extra burden they have carried because of the castration of our Negro men in this culture, it is incredible that no woman should appear as a speaker at the historic March on Washington Meeting at the Lincoln Memorial.


text: The assembled group agreed that Myrlie Evers, the new widow of Medgar Evers, could speak during the "Tribute to Women". However, Evers was unavailable, having missed her flight, and Daisy Bates spoke briefly (less than 200 words) in place of her. Earlier, Josephine Baker had addressed the crowd before the official program began. Although Gloria Richardson was on the program and had been asked to give a two-minute speech, when she arrived at the stage her chair with her name on it had been removed, and the event marshal took her microphone away after she said "hello". Richardson, along with Rosa Parks and Lena Horne, was escorted away from the podium before Martin Luther King Jr. spoke.


text: Early plans for the March would have included an "Unemployed Worker" as one of the speakers. This position was eliminated, furthering criticism of the March's middle-class bias.


text: Gospel legend Mahalia Jackson sang, "I've been 'buked, and I've been scorned", and "How I Got Over". Marian Anderson sang "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands". This was not Marian Anderson's first appearance at the Lincoln Memorial. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.


text: Joan Baez led the crowds in several verses of "We Shall Overcome" and "Oh Freedom". Musician Bob Dylan performed "When the Ship Comes In", for which he was joined by Baez. Dylan also performed "Only a Pawn in Their Game", a provocative and not completely popular choice because it asserted that Byron De La Beckwith, as a poor white man, was not personally or primarily to blame for the murder of Medgar Evers.


text: Peter, Paul and Mary sang "If I Had a Hammer" and Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind". Odetta sang "I'm On My Way".


text: Some participants, including Dick Gregory criticized the choice of mostly white performers and the lack of group participation in the singing. Dylan himself said he felt uncomfortable as a white man serving as a public image for the Civil Rights Movement. After the March on Washington, he performed at few other immediately politicized events.


text: The event featured many prominent celebrities in addition to singers on the program. Josephine Baker, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, James Baldwin, Jackie Robinson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dick Gregory, Eartha Kitt, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Diahann Carroll, and Lena Horne were among the black celebrities attending. There were also quite a few white and Latino celebrities who attended or helped fund the March in support of the cause: Tony Curtis, James Garner, Robert Ryan, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Rita Moreno, Marlon Brando, Bobby Darin and Burt Lancaster, among others. Judy Garland was part of the planning committee and was also scheduled to perform but had to drop out at the last minute due to commitments to her TV variety series.


text: After the March, the speakers travelled to the White House for a brief discussion of proposed civil rights legislation with President Kennedy. As the leaders approached The White House, the media reported that Reuther said to King, "Everything was perfect, just perfect." Kennedy had watched King's speech on TV and was very impressed. According to biographer Thomas C. Reeves, Kennedy "felt that he would be booed at the March, and also didn't want to meet with organizers before the March because he didn't want a list of demands. He arranged a 5 p.m. meeting at the White House with the 10 leaders on the 28th."


text: During the meeting, Reuther described to Kennedy how he was framing the civil rights issue to business leaders in Detroit, saying, "Look, you can't escape the problem. And there are two ways of resolving it; either by reason or riots." Reuther continued, "Now the civil war that this is gonna trigger is not gonna be fought at Gettysburg. It's gonna to be fought in your backyard, in your plant, where your kids are growing up." The March was considered a "triumph of managed protest" and Kennedy felt it was a victory for him as well—bolstering the chances for his civil rights bill.


text: Media attention gave the march national exposure, carrying the organizers' speeches and offering their own commentary. In his section "The March on Washington and Television News", William Thomas notes: "Over five hundred cameramen, technicians, and correspondents from the major networks were set to cover the event. More cameras would be set up than had filmed the last Presidential inauguration. One camera was positioned high in the Washington Monument, to give dramatic vistas of the marchers". The major networks broadcast some of the March live, though they interspersed footage of interviews with politicians. Subsequent broadcasts focused heavily on the "I have a dream" portion of King's speech.


text: The Voice of America translated the speeches and rebroadcast them in 36 languages. The United States Information Agency organized a press conference for the benefit of foreign journalists, and also created a documentary film of the event for distribution to embassies abroad. Commented Michael Thelwell of SNCC: "So it happened that Negro students from the South, some of whom still had unhealed bruises from the electric cattle prods which Southern police used to break up demonstrations, were recorded for the screens of the world portraying 'American Democracy at Work.'"


text: Although the mass media generally declared the March successful because of its high turnout, organizers were not confident that it would create change. Randolph and Rustin abandoned their belief in the effectiveness of marching on Washington. King maintained faith that action in Washington could work, but determined that future marchers would need to call greater attention to economic injustice. In 1967–1968, he organized a Poor People's Campaign to occupy the National Mall with a shantytown.


text: Black nationalist Malcolm X, in his Message to the Grass Roots speech, criticized the march, describing it as "a picnic" and "a circus". He said the civil rights leaders had diluted the original purpose of the march, which had been to show the strength and anger of black people, by allowing white people and organizations to help plan and participate in the march. One SNCC staffer commented during the march, "He's denouncing us as clowns, but he's right there with the clown show." But the membership of SNCC, increasingly frustrated with the tactics of the NAACP and other moderate groups, gradually embraced Malcolm X's position.


text: Segregationists including William Jennings Bryan Dorn criticized the government for cooperating with the civil rights activists. Senator Olin D. Johnston rejected an invitation to attend, writing: "You are committing the worst possible mistake in promoting this March. You should know that criminal, fanatical, and communistic elements, as well as crackpots, will move in to take every advantage of this mob. You certainly will have no influence on any member of Congress, including myself."


text: Many participants said they felt the March was a historic and life-changing experience. Nan Grogan Orrock, a student at Mary Washington College, said: "You couldn't help but get swept up in the feeling of the March. It was an incredible experience of this mass of humanity with one mind moving down the street. It was like being part of a glacier. You could feel the sense of collective will and effort in the air." SNCC organizer Bob Zellner reported that the event "provided dramatic proof that the sometimes quiet and always dangerous work we did in the Deep South had had a profound national impact. The spectacle of a quarter of a million supporters and activists gave me an assurance that the work I was in the process of dedicating my life to was worth doing."


text: Richard Brown, then a white graduate student at Harvard University, recalls that the March fostered direct actions for economic progress: "Henry Armstrong and I compared notes. I realized the Congress of Racial Equality might help black employment in Boston by urging businesses to hire contractors like Armstrong. He agreed to help start a list of reliable contractors that CORE could promote. It was a modest effort—but it moved in the right direction."


text: Other participants, more sympathetic to Malcolm X and the black nationalists, expressed ambivalence. One marcher from New York explained:


text: It's like St Patrick's Day. I came out of respect for what my people are doing, not because I believe it will do any good. I thought it would do some good in the beginning. But when the march started to get all the official approval from "Mastah" Kennedy, "Mastah" Wagner, "Mastah" Spellman, and they started setting limits on how we had to march peacefully, I knew that the march was going to be a mockery, that "they" were giving "us" something again.


text: Marcher Beverly Alston thought that the day had its greatest impact within the movement: "Culturally, there has been tremendous progress over the past forty years. Black awareness and self-determination has soared. Politically, I just don't think we've made enough progress." Fifteen-year-old Ericka Jenkins from Washington said:


text: I saw people laughing and listening and standing very close to one another, almost in an embrace. Children of every size, pregnant women, elderly people who seemed tired but happy to be there, clothing that made me know that they struggled to make it day to day, made me know they worked in farms or offices or even nearby for the government. I didn't see teenagers alone; I saw groups of teenagers with teachers.