March for Jobs and Freedom (1963)

Duration: 4:57

Year Published: 1963

Sound: sound

Description: This news segment for Houston’s KPRC-TV, broadcast on August 28, 1963, documents a NAACP pro-integration march and rally in Austin. The civil rights demonstration accumulated a mixed-race crowd of up to 4,000 people. Led by Booker T. Bonner, a member of the Freedom Now Committee, the "March for Jobs and Freedom" sought to protest against Governor John Connally's opposition to expanding civil rights legislation. The Indignant White Citizens Council (IWCC), a pro-segregationist group, organized a counter demonstration consisting of 11 protesters heckling the NAACP marchers. The footage also includes an interview with General Edwin Walker in which he gives his opinion on the civil rights protest. Please note that the film uses dated language to describe African Americans, indicative of the time in which it was produced. The Texas Archive of the Moving Image does not condone the use of the term "negro," but presents this film as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as to claim this term never existed.