Whereas, on August 28, 1963, some 250,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, DC; Whereas the March on Washington marked the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation; Whereas the March on Washington was the largest civil rights protest of its time; Whereas civil rights activists also marched that day in Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, London, Oslo, Madrid, The Hague, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Toronto, and Kingston, Jamaica; Whereas the March on Washington was led by the Big Six of the Civil Rights Movement, James L. Farmer, Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney M. Young, Jr.; Whereas the March was attended by Josephine Baker, Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando, Bob Dylan, Dick Gregory, Charlton Heston, Lena Horne, Mahalia Jackson, Rita Moreno, Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, and Jackie Robinson; Whereas women were excluded from the official program of the March; Whereas, nonetheless, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was only possible because of the courageous work of women in the Black Freedom Movement, including Ella Baker, Daisy Bates, Septima Clark, Myrlie Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Dorothy Height, Coretta Scott King, Pauli Murray, Diane Nash, and Rosa Parks; Whereas the logistics of the March were coordinated by Bayard Rustin, who also pioneered nonviolent, direct action protest theory; Whereas the March on Washington was organized in response to the twin evils of racism and economic deprivation ; Whereas the demands of the March participants included decent housing, the right to vote, and a national minimum wage; Whereas participants in the March on Washington also demanded home rule for the District of Columbia; Whereas the March culminated in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, iconic I Have a Dream speech; Whereas in his I Have A Dream speech, Martin Luther King, Jr., called the March on Washington the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation