By 1963, the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, most of the goals of previous protests still had not been realized.

High levels of black unemployment, work that offered most African Americans only minimal wages and poor job mobility, denial to voting rights, and the persistence of racial segregation in the South caused discussions about a large scale march for political and economic justice as early as 1962.

On behalf of the Negro American Labor Council (NALC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Randolph wrote a letter on 24 May 1962 to Secretary Stewart Udall of the Department of the Interior regarding permits for a march at the Lincoln Memorial. Plans for the march were interrupted when Udall encouraged the groups to consider the Sylvan Theater at the Washington Monument due to the complications of traffic and the volume of tourists at the Lincoln Memorial.

In March 1963 Randolph telegraphed King that the NALC had begun planning a June march “for Negro job rights,” and asked for King’s immediate response. In May, at the height of the Birmingham Campaign, King joined Randolph, James Farmer of CORE, and Charles McDew of SNCC in calling for such an action later that year, declaring, “Let the black laboring masses speak!” After notifying President Kennedy of their intent, the leaders of the major civil rights organizations set the march date for 28 August.