Washington, D.C.

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By 1963, the African American community’s demand for equality could not be ignored. Following the 1954 Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools, those who were oppressed took their place at lunch counters for sit-in demonstrations, participated in freedom rides, and refused to give up their seats on public buses. In August 1963, some 200,000 people converged on the nation’s capital to heed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for the country to change its policy of institutional discrimination. The photographs contained in Black America: Washington, D.C.: 1963-2006 chronicle that journey, from the struggle of the civil rights era to triumphs of African Americans in the most politically powerful city in the United States.

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