This week in Christian history: Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, Althea Brown commissioned as missionary

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, May 12, 2024

Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C. – May 17, 1957

The Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, a civil rights gathering that took place in Washington, D.C. in 1957 and had approximately 25,000 attendees. | Screengrab: YouTube/Public Domain Archive

This week marks the anniversary of the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, a large-scale civil rights rally overseen by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that was held in Washington, D.C.

Taking place six years before the more famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the prayer pilgrimage was also held at the National Mall and featured several speakers and an estimated 25,000 attendees.

The march was organized with the intention of getting the Eisenhower administration to take a more active role in desegregation following the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.

“Although the event attracted less than one half of its intended participants, the pilgrimage featured singing by Mahalia Jackson, and speeches from such prominent leaders as Randolph, Powell, Mordecai Johnson, Fred Shuttlesworth, Roy Wilkins, and Charles Diggs,” according to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Standford University.

“King had gained national prominence. When King preached at Philadelphia’s Zion Baptist Church just two days after the pilgrimage ‘a crowd estimated at more than 1,800 persons crammed into the church, and hundreds of others who failed to gain admittance stood outside to get a glimpse of the nation’s most talked-about leader’ (Papers 4:15).”