Commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington

Union members from a wide variety of unions participated in a Commemoration of the Historic March on Washington in 1963 this past Saturday.

MALC President Fendt was one of the speakers, along with Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, County Executive David Crowley. Senator Lena Taylor, Representative David F. Bowen, and Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President Stephanie Bloomingdale.

Here is a transcript of President Fendt's Remarks:
Welcome to Zeidler Union Square. Thank you to the leaders of the Milwaukee A. Philip Randolph Institute Chapter, my sister Decorah Gordon, President Larry Hall, and my friend Chris Harris. Thank you to all for putting together this event and thank you to all who came out to participate.
I’d like to start by saying I am very honored to be here today to participate in this event to commemorate the historic march on Washington for civil rights and voting rights in 1963. I’m going to share a bit of a personal story. Many of my friends here today know I lost my mother a little less than a year ago, and much of the sorting of my parents’ papers fell to me. One of the most interesting files I found was one titled NAACP - civil rights in my father’s handwriting. In it I found many articles that he had saved, and agendas from different meetings and programs they attended in the 60s. I knew my parents had been members of the NAACP for many years (in fact, in the file were some old membership cards) and I found a newspaper clipping from December 1964 noting that my parents had received an award from their local NAACP chapter. It makes me feel so proud of them and I am eternally grateful for the family that I blessed to be raised in.
I remembered that they had told me they participated in a march in Lincoln Nebraska. Reading an article, I found that the Lincoln march took place in June 1963, when the NAACP there organized a march after the killing of Medgar Evers. This is a sobering reminder that many people were murdered in the fight for civil rights. It gets disheartening that, all these years on, we are facing so many threats that mirror those that our society faced in 1963.

The good news is there are solidarity actions still taking place. The unions of the AFL-CIO are actively working in support of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act. These important pieces of voting rights legislation are part of a Workers First Agenda, along with the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize legislation and the Infrastructure bill, which is all about Building Back Better with Unions, in the words of President Liz Shuler. Our movement values democracy within our local unions and councils, and in our County. Labor is central to bringing America together. We are where so many walks of life and issues converge.
I will close with a quote from A. Philip Randolph (organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) and civil rights leader that I found in my dad’s file. This was from the New York Times on Friday, August 30, 1963, he is speaking about plans for after the march.

“We need allies. People who are victims must take the leadership. No one but a Jew could lead the fight against anti-Semitism. No one but a man from the ranks of labor could lead the labor movement. But the Negro cannot win the fight alone, no more than the Jew or labor leader could win his fight alone. We need allies.”

“We need allies.” Translated that means we must stand together in solidarity.

I thank everyone who came to commemorate the march today and I know we can count on you as allies in the struggle for civil rights, labor rights, and voting rights.