Thousands of people came together at the National Mall to remember the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s March on Washington.
But they say that even after all this time, the US is still driven by racial inequality, and King’s dream has not yet come true.
Alphonso David, the leader of the Global Black Economic Forum, said at the march on Saturday: “We have made progress, over the last 60 years, since Dr King led the March on Washington.
“Have we reached the mountaintop? Not by a long shot.”
The event was organised by the Kings’ Drum Major Institute and the Rev Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.
Many leaders fighting for Black civil rights and a diverse group of allies joined together at the same place where around 250,000 people gathered in 1963 for one of the most important demonstrations in US history for fairness and equal rights.
During the event, King made his “I have a dream”, speech, one of the most famous pieces of oratory in history.
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Saturday’s event had many differences from the original march. Speakers talked about the rights of LGBTQ and Asian American people, while more women had the chance to speak compared to 1963 when only one woman spoke.
Pamela Mays McDonald from Philadelphia was at the first march when she was a child.
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“I was eight years old at the original March and only one woman was allowed to speak – she was from Arkansas where I’m from – now look at how many women are on the podium today,” she said.
For some people, the differences were bittersweet.
Marsha Dean Phelts from Florida said: “I often look back and look over to the reflection pool and the Washington Monument and I see a quarter of a million people 60 years ago and just a trickling now. It was more fired up then. But the things we were asking for and needing, we still need them today.”
As speakers shared their messages, the noise of aeroplanes taking off from Ronald Reagan National Airport could be heard. People were also playing rugby and jogging nearby.
On Friday, Martin Luther King III and his sister, Bernice King, visited their father’s monument in Washington. Bernice said: “I see a man still standing in authority and saying, ‘We’ve still got to get this right’.”
Speakers included actor Sacha Baron Cohen and Ambassador Andrew Young, who was an important adviser to King and helped organise the original march. He also served as a congressman, UN ambassador, and mayor of Atlanta. Leaders from the NAACP and the National Urban League were also expected to speak.
Some leaders from the organising groups met with attorney general Merrick Garland and assistant attorney general Kristen Clarke from the civil rights division on Friday. They talked about many issues, like voting rights, policing, and redlining.
Saturday’s gathering leads up to the real anniversary of the March on Washington, which happened on 28 August 1963.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will mark this anniversary on Monday by meeting with people who organised the 1963 march. All of Martin Luther King Jr’s children were invited to meet with Mr Biden too, according to the White House.
For Rev Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, honouring March on Washington anniversaries is a pledge he made to Coretta Scott King, the matriarch of the King family. She introduced him to King III at a march 23 years ago and encouraged them to uphold the legacy.
“Never did I imagine that 23 years later, Martin and I, alongside Arndrea, would lead a march with fewer civil rights protections than in 2000,” Rev Sharpton noted, referring to King III’s wife, Arndrea Waters King.
Donald Trump says the Gaza ceasefire should be cancelled if all remaining Israeli hostages are not returned by noon on Saturday – as he warned Hamas that “all hell is going to break out”.
The US president’s intervention came hours after Hamas has said it will delay the release of more hostages and accused Israel of violating their ceasefire deal.
While signing a series of new executive orders, Mr Trump said he feared many Israeli hostages scheduled for release are already dead.
Referring to his Saturday deadline for the release of hostages, Mr Trump said: “If they’re not here, all hell is going to break out.”
He acknowledged that a decision to end the ceasefire was up to Israel, adding: “I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it.”
Hours earlier, Mr Trump said Palestinians would not have the right to return under his plan for US “ownership” of Gaza – contradicting officials in his administration who said they would be relocated temporarily.
Earlier on Monday, Hamas claimed ceasefire violations had included “delaying the return of the displaced to the northern Gaza Strip, and targeting them with shelling and gunfire”.
Spokesman Abu Obeida said Hamas remained committed if Israel kept to the terms, but that the 15 February handover was postponed “until the occupation commits to and compensates for the past weeks”.
Egyptian security sources told Reuters that mediators now fear the deal will break down.
They said Hamas believes Israel isn’t serious about the ceasefire – which began on 19 January.
They were among about 250 people taken during the 7 October 2023 attack, when 1,200 people were murdered.
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Tears as Thai hostages return home
Five swaps have taken place so far, with 21 hostages and more than 730 Palestinian prisoners released.
Saturday’s exchange was due to involve three more Israelis and hundreds of Palestinians.
Defence minister Israel Katz said any delay in releasing hostages would be “a complete violation” and he had instructed troops to be on highest alert.
The Hostages and Missing Family Forum called on mediating countries to restore the deal, saying “time is of the essence” and citing “the shocking conditions of the hostages released last Saturday”.
The four-mile-long Netzarim corridor separates northern Gaza from the south, and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have now crossed back over.
However, Israel pushed back the withdrawal by a few days in protest at the chaotic release of hostages Arbel Yehud and Gadi Moses.
This may be what Hamas is referencing what it talks of “delaying the return of the displaced”.
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Palestinians return to destroyed Netzarim
There have also been examples of Israeli troops shooting at or near Palestinians approaching Israeli forces after being warned to stay back.
So far, little progress has been made on an extension to the first six-week phase of the ceasefire.
A delegation from Israel has arrived in Qatar for further talks amid concern the deal might collapse before all remaining hostages are freed.
Israel has previously said it will not agree to a complete withdrawal from Gaza until Hamas’s military and political capabilities are eliminated.
Hamas has countered that it will not hand over the final hostages until Israel removes all its troops from Gaza.
The proclamations mean the president has now removed the exceptions and exemptions from his 2018 tariffs on steel to allow for all imports of the metal to be taxed at 25%.
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The new tariff on aluminium is also much higher than the 10% duty he imposed on the material in his first term.
The tariffs are part of an aggressive push by Mr Trump to reset global trade, as he claims that price hikes on the people and companies buying foreign-made products will ultimately strengthen domestic manufacturing.
Outside economic analyses suggest the tariffs would increase costs for the factories that use steel and aluminium, possibly leaving US manufacturers worse off.
Canada, the largest source of steel imports to the US, criticised the move.
Candace Laing, CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said Mr Trump was destabilising the global economy.
“Today’s news makes it clear that perpetual uncertainty is here to stay,” she said.
At least part of the idea behind tariffs is to bring some production back to the US, but imposing them will have consequences.
What kinds of consequences? Well, at its simplest, tariffs push up prices. This is, when you think about it, blindingly obvious.
A tariff is a tax on a good entering the country.
So if aluminium and steel are going up in price then that means, all else equal, that the cost of making everything from aircraft wings to steel rivets also goes up.
That in turn means consumers end up paying the price – and if a company can’t make ends meet in the face of these tariffs, it means job losses – possibly within the very industrial sectors the president wants to protect.
So says the economic theory. But in practice, economics isn’t everything.
There are countless examples throughout history of countries defying economic logic in search of other goals.
Perhaps they want to improve their national self-reliance in a given product; perhaps they want to ensure certain jobs in cherished areas or industries are protected.
But nothing comes for free, and even if Donald Trump’s tariffs succeed in persuading domestic producers to smelt more aluminium or steel, such things don’t happen overnight.
In the short run, it’s hard to see how these tariffs wouldn’t be significantly inflationary.
Donald Trump has said Palestinians would have no right to return to Gaza under his proposal to relocate its population and rebuild the Strip.
The president last week debuted his suggestion to “own” Gaza and shut out Hamas while it’s redeveloped, but has now contradicted officials who had said any relocation would be temporary.
Asked by Fox News if Palestinians could return, he replied: “No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing. In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.”
Speaking on Monday at the White House, Mr Trump also suggested the current ceasefire in Gaza should end on Saturday if Hamas does not release hostages as planned.
He then went further, saying all the remaining hostages should be released by midday on Saturday, or the ceasefire should be cancelled – and that “all hell is going to break out” if the hostages are not freed then.
But the US president added: “I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it.”
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‘I would own this’ – Trump on Gaza
Mr Trump told Fox News his future vision for Gazawas to build multiple “safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is”, adding the area is currently “not habitable”.
He said he believed he could cut a deal with Jordan or Egypt to take people in.
However, Arab allies – including Egypt and Saudi Arabia – have dismissed the idea of relocating Gaza’s two-million-plus population.
Western countries have also rejected the proposal; an independent state for Palestinians remains the favoured way forward but is a no-go for the Israeli government.
When asked in the media, Palestinians have also rubbished the idea.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has supported Mr Trump’s controversial proposal.
Much of Gaza lies in ruins due to Israel‘s attempt to wipe out Hamas after its 2023 terror attack that killed around 1,200 people in Israel.
About 250 were also kidnapped, but those still alive have started to be released in recent weeks after a hard-won truce took effect last month.
Since the ceasefire began on 19 January, five swaps have taken place – with 16 Israeli and five Thai hostages released.
In total, Israel has said it will release up to 1,904 Palestinian prisoners in return for 33 Israeli hostages during the deal’s first phase.
Prospect of no return most offensive part of radical plan
From Donald Trump, it’s a hardened “No”. Asked directly if Palestinians would have the right to return to a redeveloped Gaza, he told Fox News Channel’s Brett Baier: “No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing.”
If the notion of Trump building on Gaza has offended its people, most offensive is the prospect for them of no return. Since Donald Trump first suggested taking and building on Palestinian land, observers in America, the Middle East and all countries in between have been assessing its seriousness.
Everything he’s said since indicates he’s committed both to the project and to ignoring entrenched objections from allies and adversaries alike.
In spite of flat refusals by Jordan and Egypt to resettle Palestinians in those countries, Trump said: “I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year.”
If peace in the Middle East was a matter of money, it would have been solved long ago. Tuesday’s meeting in Washington between Trump and Jordan’s King Abdullah won’t be easy.
In the White House, the Jordanian leader will talk numbers of his own – the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees already living in the Hashemite kingdom and the instability threatened by moving more.
Trump is also due to meet the Egyptian president and the Saudi crown prince in the coming days – it is a chorus of Arab voices to caution an expansionist president at a delicate time, as parties involved in the current conflict work through the phases of a ceasefire deal.
Trump’s plan is radical and it invites fresh-eyed debate over a way forward for the region.
However, it is the property deal that separates a people from their home – again. At the heart of a radical plan, it’s the inherent recklessness.
So far, little progress has been made on an extension to the first six-week phase of the ceasefire.
A delegation from Israel has arrived in Qatar for further talks amid concern the deal might collapse before all remaining hostages are freed.