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On 18 April 1959, King, along with several other civil rights leaders, including Daisy Bates, Harry Belafonte, A. Philip Randolph, Jackie Robinson, and Roy Wilkins, spoke before 26, 000 black high school and college students who had come to the nations capital to demonstrate their support for the 1954 Supreme Court decision against racial segregation in the nation's public schools. This was the second consecutive year that such a march was held. The first march, with 10,0000 students present, was held on 25 October 1958. Liberal Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois had the texts of the march's speeches placed in the Congressional Record.
As I stand here and look out upon the thousands of Negro faces, and the thousands of white faces, intermingled like the waters of a river, I see only one face-the face of the future.
'Yes, as I gaze upon this great historic assembly, this unprecedented gathering of young people, I cannot help thinking-that a hundred years from now the historians will be calling this not the "beat" generation, but the generation of integration.
The fact that thousands of you came here to Washington and that thousands more signed your petition proves that this generation will not take "No" for an answer-will not take double talk for an answer-will not take gradualism for an answer. It proves that the only answer you will settle for is-total desegregation and total equality-now.
I know of no words eloquent enough to express the deep meaning, the great power, and the unconquerable spirit back of this inspiringly original, uniquely American march of young people. Nothing like it has ever happened in the history of our .nation. Nothing, that is, except the last youth march. What this march demonstrates to me, above all else, is that you young people, through your own experience, have somehow discovered the central fact of American life-that the extension of democracy for all Americans depends upon complete integration of Negro Americans.
By coming here you have shown yourselves to be highly alert, highly responsible young citizens. And very soon the area of your responsibility will increase, for you will begin to exercise your greatest privilege as an American-the right to vote. Of course, you will have no difficulty exercising this privilege-if...