Tens of thousands of people are descending on D.C. streets Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington -- and to rally for D.C. statehood.
Martin Luther King, III and Rev. Al Sharpton are leading the National Action to Realize the Dream March at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday, featuring speeches by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sharpton, King, and the families of Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin.
Marchers will then continue on to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.
Following the rally, a Global Freedom Festival kicks off on the National Mall. All events are open to the public.
These events kick of days of commemoration leading up to Wednesday, the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
But the National Action Network, one of the organizers of the event, has said they don’t want the event to be just a commemoration or a celebration, reported News4's Aaron Gilchrist. They want it to be a protest.
They want to send a message to lawmakers and Congress to “realize the dream” -- pushing Congress to realize there is still work to be done on immigration, jobs, civil rights, and women’s issues.
Reverend Jesse Jackson, a participant in the original march 50 years ago, said there were many barriers in those days that have fallen, but there are more barriers coming up today.
“We’ve gone from being denied the right to vote to the crown jewel, President Barrack (Obama) in the White House today. Yet beyond that, too many are facing abounding poverty, student loan debt, credit card debt,” Jackson said. “Now we need a focus on legislation and appropriations to revive the war on poverty and fight for a constitutional right to vote.”
Jackson told Gilchrist that the progress made in the 50 years since the march has become fragile due to recent actions by legislators and courts.
“There is a radical backlash on that progress. When they are taking precincts off campus, that’s a step backward,” he said. “People working, but working poor without resources. Closed plants at home and sending jobs abroad. Jobs out and drugs and guns in.”
“We must fight now to sustain and rebuild our economy from the bottom up.”
Voting rights are a major focus, as they were 50 years ago. But now, activists are focused on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision this year to strike down parts of the federal Voting Rights Act. Those provisions were originally passed to protect black voters in mostly Southern states.
"We have seen the most aggressive attack on voting rights that we have seen in many, many years in this country," said Jotaka Eaddy, senior director of voting rights for the NAACP and an attendee at Saturday's events. "So we want to send a message ... to make sure that Congress does everything in its power to fix section four of the Voting Rights Act."
The commemoration of the March on Washington continues until Wednesday, 50 years to the day after the Great March and King's "Dream" speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial Aug. 28, 1963 to more than 250,000 civil rights activists
President Obama will speak on Wednesday, as will former president Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. They will be joined by political and cultural figures including Congressman John Lewis, Ambassador Andrew Young and Oprah Winfrey.
The anniversary has echoed throughout Washington, D.C. in ways large and small: Before standing before those thousands of people, King made major changes to his speech at The Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. So to commemorate the event, the hotel has loaned a wax statue of King from Madame Tussauds in D.C., greeting King's family members and other VIPs slated to stay at the hotel.
The D.C. statehood message will be a major focus Saturday. King himself advocated for D.C. statehood and independence, and protestors calling for representation for D.C. were part of the March on Washington 50 years ago.
That theme was echoed by D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and other statehood supporters who met at the D.C. War Memorial on Independence Avenue SW Saturday morning.
Stay with News4 and NBCWashington.com for more special coverage throughout the weekend and week.