The speech was delivered 50 years ago today — August 28, 1963 — as part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It gave a powerful boost to the Civil Rights Movement and helped lead to passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.
In honor of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, NMWA (The National Museum of Women in the Arts) is presenting Faith Ringgold’s paintings portraying the Civil Rights movement. Visit NMWA to view this powerful exhibition and remember this important day in history.
Ringgold’s unprecedented exploration of race and gender in America is examined in this comprehensive survey of 49 rarely-exhibited paintings. In Ringgold’s American People series, begun in 1963, closely grouped figures reflect the tension arising from interracial contact that Ringgold observed and felt directly. The Black Light paintings express Ringgold’s engagement with the broader “black is beautiful” movement and reference events that shaped the late 1960s, including race riots and the manned Apollo missions to the moon. More info here.