Today in History, August 28th
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington. Plus Pepsi's naming and more.
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August 28 is best known for 1963, when about 250,000 people joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. The date also marks Britain’s Slavery Abolition Act becoming law in 1833 and Brad’s Drink being renamed Pepsi-Cola in 1898.
The big story: The March on Washington and “I Have a Dream” (1963)
The crowd that filled the National Mall was enormous, about 250,000 people, Black and white, gathered near the Lincoln Memorial. They came to protest racial discrimination and to push Congress to pass civil rights legislation pending in Congress. The march was the work of a coalition of civil rights leaders, including the labor leader A. Philip Randolph, with Bayard Rustin as its chief organizer. Martin Luther King Jr. was the day’s last official speaker. His prepared text was meant to fit in about seven minutes. Partway through, he set the script aside and preached, building to the refrain “I have a dream.” He spoke for roughly 16 minutes, describing a country that would finally live up to its promise of equality. The speech became one of the most famous in American history. The pressure the march helped build fed into the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and King received the Nobel Peace Prize that October.
More events on August 28
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1833 | Britain’s Slavery Abolition Act received royal assent. It took effect on August 1, 1834, though most freed people were bound as “apprentices” for years more. |
| 1879 | British forces captured Cetshwayo, the last great king of the Zulu, after the Anglo-Zulu War. He was sent into exile. |
| 1898 | Pharmacist Caleb Bradham of New Bern, North Carolina, renamed his “Brad’s Drink” Pepsi-Cola. |
| 1955 | Emmett Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago, was abducted and murdered in Mississippi. His mother’s choice of an open casket made the crime a national cause. |
| 1988 | Three jets from Italy’s Frecce Tricolori team collided at an air show at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany and fell toward the crowd. The three pilots and dozens of spectators were killed. |
| 1993 | NASA’s Galileo spacecraft flew past the asteroid Ida and found Dactyl, a tiny moon about a mile wide. It was the first evidence that asteroids can have moons. |
| 1996 | The divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana became final. Diana kept the title Princess of Wales but gave up “Her Royal Highness.” |
| 2020 | Actor Chadwick Boseman, star of Black Panther and 42, died of colon cancer in Los Angeles at 43. |
Born on August 28
- 1749: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer of Faust, born in Frankfurt am Main.
- 1774: Elizabeth Ann Seton, founder of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph and later canonized as a saint, born in New York City.
- 1952: Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and the first African American U.S. poet laureate, born in Akron, Ohio.
Sources
- March on Washington, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- King speaks to March on Washington, History.com
- Slavery Abolition Act, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- When Pepsi Got Its Name, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- This Day in History: August 28, History.com
- Emmett Till, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Galileo (spacecraft), Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Chadwick Boseman, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Rita Dove, Encyclopaedia Britannica
