#all things considered

In 2004 @npr’s Noah Adams recorded his visit to one of the National Mall’s lesser-known monuments, the District of Columbia War Memorial.

“…We call these World War I memorials, but that is only a corrective note of history. There was not to be another conflict of such scale. The inscription on the base of this white marble structure says only ‘The Great War to Save Civilization.’”

Image: District of Columbia War Memorial. Credit: Raymond Boyd/Getty Images.

Jobs, Peace, and Freedom, All Things Considered, 08/27/1983

MARCHING ON WASHINGTON

In 1983, twenty years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, tens of thousands of people reconvened on the National Mall for the Jobs, Peace and Freedom March. March coordinators intended to rally a diverse group of people and causes to expand the fight for civil rights.

“20  years ago we came here, most of us was scared. We ain’t scared today, baby.”

-Dick Gregory

The digital preservation of this audio has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Researcher Laura Garbes contributed to this post.

Image: Jim Wilson / The Boston Globe / Getty Images / 1983.

The National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, All Things Considered, 10/14/1979

MARCHING ON WASHINGTON

All Things Considered recorded the voices of speakers, protesters and onlookers at the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in October 1979. The march was one of the first large-scale national demonstrations for gay and lesbian rights. Organizers sought federal anti-discrimination laws to protect gay and lesbian individuals and advocated for the inclusion of sexual orientation as a protected status within the Civil Rights Act of 1954.

“Visibility is protection. Visibility is a way to legislation. And visibility is something that brings others out and gives them courage.”

-Demonstrator at the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights

The digital preservation of this audio has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Researcher Laura Garbes contributed to this post.

Image: Bettman / Getty Images / 1979.

Tractorcade,All Things Considered, 02/05/1979

MARCHING ON WASHINGTON

In February 1979, All Things Considered visited the National Mall to record a spectacle known as Tractorcade. A convoy of farmers from the American Agriculture Movement drove their tractors thousands of miles in winter conditions from places like Texas, Ohio and Colorado, to rally in support of farmworkers’ rights to earn a living wage.

“The way we…bring our point across…is by bringing the tractor. The tractor is out of place in Washington, D.C.”

- A member of the 1979 tractor convoy

The digital preservation of this audio has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Researcher Laura Garbes contributed to this post.

Image: Bill Wilson / 1979. Reprinted with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection © Washington Post.

The city of Washington, D.C. holds a symbolic place in American culture as a space to voice a diversity of ideas, views and agendas. @npr​ has reported on the political tradition of marching on Washington since 1971 when All Things Considered (ATC) debuted with a sound portrait of one of the largest anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in history.

We’re listening back through the archives and rediscovering stories about marches on Washington that reflect NPR’s original mission to represent a “genuine diversity of regions, values, and cultural and ethnic minorities which comprise American society [and]… speak with many voices and many dialects.”

Image: U.S. Information Agency / National Archives & Records Administration / 1963.