State College will host a commemoration for the 58th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom from noon to 2 p.m. on Saturday. The celebration will have music, performances and more.
The event will be located in Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza on South Fraser Street. There will also be an online stream available.
“We chose to meld a symbolic march into an online event to continue the tradition,” MLK Plaza committee member Gary Abdullah said in a release.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place Aug. 28, 1963 with an estimated 250,000 participants protesting to advocate for greater economic and civil rights for Black Americans. As the final speaker at the event, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
State College’s in-person anniversary celebration will start off with a march from Sidney Friedman Parklet to the plaza. The march is meant to call attention to social justice issues of race, gender and economic justice and promote positive change. The online portion will open up at the plaza while the State College band Canary leads the Black National Anthem.
Attendees can expect to hear from different organizations and groups that want to support this tradition.
“As with the original march, we’re asking many distinct organizations — the NAACP, Community & Campus in Unity, Community Diversity Group, 3/20 Coalition, Penn State’s Forum on Black Affairs, student leaders, and others — to blend out different perspectives to advance our common causes of racial justice and equity,” Abdullah said.
Attendees will hear a welcome speech from Leslie Laing, a member of the State College NAACP, a brief history lesson about the first march, and a “Tribute to John Lewis” by Penn State professor emeritus of theater Charles Dumas, who participated in the 1963 march, and associate professor of communications Jo Dumas.
Because Centre County has a substantial transmission level of COVID-19, those attending are asked to wear masks.
Saturday’s event also will mark the fourth anniversary of the opening of State College’s Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza.
