How the World Answered the March on Washington

Fifty years ago, American expatriates organized their own kind of protests in European capitals. Many were African Americans like writer James Baldwin, who organized one in Paris among American jazz musicians and actors living there.

After the March on Washington, homegrown protests occurred in countries from The Netherlands to Burundi. The growing criticism of racist policies in the United States was something that President Kennedy was sensitive to as he navigated Cold War politics and his administration struggled to create their own narrative of what the march meant.

Marco Werman speaks with Emory University legal historian Mary Dudziak. She’s written extensively about the link between the civil rights movement and Cold War US foreign policy.