On May 17, 1957, on the third anniversary of the Supreme Court’s epoch-making decision in the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation case, thousands of people traveled to Washington, D.C. — not for a visit, but for a pilgrimage. The reason for the gathering, in short, was that the milestone court decision had not yet translated to real integration.
“The camera of Paul Schutzer caught these faces in a crowd of 15,000 people who assembled in Washington from 30 different states on a mass ‘prayer pilgrimage for freedom,'” LIFE Magazine noted in its June 3, 1957, issue. “The pilgrimage, on the third anniversary of the Supreme Court’s segregation decision, was planned to urge the President, Congress and both political parties to make the court’s decision a reality.” (The actual number of participants may have been significantly higher.) This Black History Month, LIFE revisits Schutzer’s striking images, seen here — many of which were not published as part of the magazine’s coverage of the event.
The most important of the day’s speeches, the brief write-up continued, was by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who asked those in attendance to work unrelentingly but for the goal of voting rights and true equality. In an oration that would come to be known as the “Give Us the Ballot” speech, he affirmed the ways in which voting rights were essential to the goal of integration and freedom, and how important he believed it was to face without bitterness the work to be done:
We must never struggle with falsehood, hate, or malice. We must never become bitter. I know how we feel sometime. There is the danger that those of us who have been forced so long to stand amid the tragic midnight of oppression — those of us who have been trampled over, those of us who have been kicked about — there is the danger that we will become bitter. But if we will become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns, the old, the new order which is emerging will be nothing but a duplication of the old order… We must meet hate with love.
The portraits captured by Schutzer that day were more than an attendance list, the magazine pointed out: they were a visual reflection of the spirit of King’s plea “in the expressions of the pilgrims listening, with prayerful intensity, to the exhortations.”
Rallying point for Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesReverend Martin Luther King Jr. addressing the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C. in 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Chicago gospel singer Mahalia Jackson sings "Keep-A-Trustin" during three-hour meeting.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesTwo women among 15,000 people at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Intent listener, an elderly woman, sat almost immobile as speakers voiced hope and warning.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesRepresentative Adam Clayton Powell Jr. addressing Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Patriarchal Pilgram sat through meeting in quiet dignity, once broke into a pleased smile.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Pretty pilgrim follows close attention the speech by Dr. King at meeting's climax.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Fierce concentration shows on face of Judge Edward R. Dudley of New York during speech.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesHarry Belafonte and wife Julie at Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. With quiet force, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King calls for action to implement court decision.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAt the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, women wearing their Sunday best and waving their arms in approval, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesActor Sidney Poitier during prayer pilgrimage, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCivil Rights heroine Rosa Parks, who touched off Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott at the Prayer Pilgrimage, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesParticipant addressing the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C. in 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA child with a group of pilgrims at the Lincoln Memorial during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C. in 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA women's chorus singing in front of Lincoln Memorial during Prayer Pilgrimage, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCivil Rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (2R) with others at prayer pilgrimage, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Prayerful pastor, Rev. I. G. Glover from Brooklyn, broods during one of rally's speeches. Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesFaces in the crowd at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesFaces in the crowd at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesFaces in the crowd at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesReverend Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom at Lincoln Memorial, 1957.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
