The 1963 March on Washington has become the standard bearer in American public memory for non-violent, political demonstration. With Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” as one of the most recognizable moments of the event, the depth and the nuance of the March on Washington and the movement that shaped has rarely surfaced among and academic and popular discourse. With attention to widening the frame in which to analyze the 1963 March on Washington, historian Marcia Chatelain offers a new reading of the March from the vantage point of the gender dynamics that undoubtedly shaped it.

Marcia Chatelain is the Penn Presidential Compact Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. A historian of African-American life and culture, Dr. Chatelain has taught at the University of Oklahoma and Georgetown University. She is the author of three books: South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, and How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington. Dr. Chatelain has received awards for her writing and teaching, including the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History.

This event presented by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. It is made possible in part by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.