Martin Luther King speaking to the crowds at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. Washington DC, USA. May 17th, 1957

According to Magnum photographs, from which we got this print, "In May 1957, upwards of 22,000 people gathered to mark the third anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education legal ruling. Martin Luther King Jr gave a speech, which came to be known as Give Us the Ballot. An excerpt of this reads: ‘Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights…Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law…Give us the ballot and we will fill our legislative halls with men of good will."