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On Friday, August 28, 2026, we gather on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the March on Washington: Defend the Vote. Hosted by Rev. Al Sharpton, the National Action Network, and the Drum Major Institute on the 63rd anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, we march because the work is not finished.
This is not only about one election. This is about whether our democracy will protect all of us. This is about whether the promises of 1963 will finally be made real. This is about standing together, across generations, to say we will not go backward.
On August 28, we return to Washington not to remember history, but to make history. We march for the vote. We march for justice. We march for the future.
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On this very date in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial before a quarter of a million people and delivered the address the nation would come to know as I Have a Dream. He called America to make good on its founding promise, and he set a generation marching toward justice.
We gather on August 28, 2026 in that same tradition. The same ground. The same conviction that ordinary people, moving together in peace, can bend this country toward its better self. The generation of 1963 won the Voting Rights Act. Our generation has come to defend it.
This march is convened by two organizations built to carry that work forward. The National Action Network, founded by Rev. Al Sharpton in 1991, is one of the nation's leading civil rights organizations. From its House of Justice in Harlem and through chapters across the country, NAN has spent decades on the front lines of the fight for voting rights, police accountability, criminal justice reform, and economic empowerment, organizing communities, standing with families, and pressing for change at every level of government.
The Drum Major Institute, led by Martin Luther King III and Andrea Waters King, continues Dr. King's mission of peace, justice, and equity, mobilizing a new generation to confront what Dr. King called the triple evils of poverty, racism, and violence. Together, these two organizations bring the movement from 1963 into 2026.
From the first march in 1963 to the anniversaries that followed, the people have returned to this ground again and again. On August 28, 2026, we add our footsteps to theirs.
Two generations of the movement, standing on the same ground their families helped make sacred, asking the nation to defend the vote.
Rev. Al Sharpton is the founder and president of the National Action Network, one of the nation's most influential civil rights organizations, which he established in 1991. A Baptist minister and lifelong organizer, he has spent decades on the front lines of the fight for justice, equality, and the protection of voting rights, leading from the House of Justice in Harlem and on the national stage.
Martin Luther King III is a global human rights advocate and the eldest son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. With his wife, Andrea Waters King, he leads the Drum Major Institute, carrying his father's mission of peace, justice, and equity into a new generation. He returns to Washington to defend the very rights his parents marched to win.
In 2000, at the Redeem the Dream march on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Mrs. Coretta Scott King stood before the nation and brought Rev. Al Sharpton together with her son Martin Luther King III, charging them to keep marching side by side and carry the torch of justice forward.
"We're fulfilling the assignment Mrs. King gave us."Rev. Al Sharpton
Twenty six years later, that promise is what brings them back to Washington together. The march on August 28 is that same assignment, still being answered.
Watch Mrs. King's words →Friend,
History does not happen to us. It happens through us. The men and women who marched in 1963 were not waiting for a better moment. They made the moment. They walked into the heart of the nation and told the truth about freedom, about justice, and about the promise this country still owes its people.
We stand on the same ground because the work is not finished. The right to vote, the very foundation of our power, is being chipped away in statehouse after statehouse. When the vote is weakened, every other right grows fragile with it. That is why we march. That is what we mean when we say Defend the Vote.
I am asking you to be a part of history. Not a witness to it. A part of it. Bring your family. Bring your church. Bring your block, your union, your chapter, your city. Fill a bus and fill the streets. On August 28, let Washington hear one voice that cannot be ignored.
The dream was never a memory to admire. It was an assignment to complete. Come and complete it with us.
No justice, no peace.
The March on Washington was never a single day. It was a beginning. In 2026 we answer the same call our elders answered, with the same demand for a nation that keeps its promises.
We return to the ground where a quarter million Americans once stood for jobs and freedom, and we carry their unfinished work into a new generation.
The right to vote is the source of all our power. As it is challenged across the country, we march to protect it for every citizen, in every community.
The dream of full and equal citizenship is not yet won. We march so the children who come after us inherit it whole, not weakened or deferred.
Across faith, race, and region, we move as one body and one demand. When we stand together, no statehouse and no silence can outlast us.
We assemble at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the same steps where Dr. King spoke in 1963. Program start time and the march route will follow.
Churches, chapters, unions, and community groups move this movement. Whether you want to fill a bus, sponsor a bus, host a bus in your area, or you already have riders ready to roll, tell us and our team will reach out so we can partner with you.
Organizations, faith leaders, businesses, and volunteers all have a place in this march. Tell us how you want to stand with us and our partnerships team will follow up.
This march runs on the people. Your gift helps cover buses, staging, sound, security, and the organizing that brings tens of thousands to Washington. Every dollar moves us forward.
Make a secure contribution to the National Action Network in support of the march and the work behind it.
Donate at NationalActionNetwork.net →