About This Stamp
With this 2013 stamp, the U.S. Postal Service commemorates the 50th anniversary of the August 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The highlight of the event — in which some 250,000 people participated — was the powerful “I Have a Dream” speech that Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
The stamp art shows marchers against the background of the Washington Monument, with placards calling for equal rights and jobs for all. Using broad strokes and painting in oil on gessoed illustration board, the artist conveys an impressionistic effect of the historic occasion. The 1963 March on Washington stamp is the last of three stamps being issued in 2013 in a civil rights set. The first in the set commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the second commemorated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Parks. An inspiring word appears in large type in the selvage of each sheet: “Freedom,” for the Emancipation Proclamation; “Courage,” for Rosa Parks; “Equality,” for The 1963 March on Washington.
The March on Washington was a milestone in the civil rights movement. King called it “the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” Bayard Rustin, the main organizer of the event, observed, “What made the march was that black people voted that day with their feet.” It gave African Americans “an identity which is a part of the national struggle in this country for the extension of democracy.”
Less than a year after the march, Congress passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which desegregated public institutions and outlawed job discrimination. Soon thereafter the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided for federal oversight of voting rights in the South, became the law of the land.
Art director Antonio Alcalá worked with illustrator Greg Manchess to produce this important commemorative stamp.
The 1963 March on Washington stamp is being issued as a Forever® stamp. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce rate.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Antonio Alcalá
Antonio Alcalá served on the Postmaster General’s Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 2010 until 2011, when he left to become an art director for the U.S. Postal Service's stamp development program.
He is founder and co-owner of Studio A, a design practice working with museums and arts institutions. His clients include: the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Phillips Collection, and Smithsonian Institution. He also lectures at colleges including the Corcoran College of Art + Design, SVA, Pratt, and MICA.
In 2008, his work and contributions to the field of graphic design were recognized with his selection as an AIGA Fellow. He has judged international competitions for the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, AIGA, and Graphis. Alcalá also serves on the Smithsonian National Postal Museum and Poster House Museum’s advisory councils. His designs are represented in the AIGA Design Archives, the National Postal Museum, and the Library of Congress Permanent Collection of Graphic Design.
Alcalá graduated from Yale University with a BA in history and from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in graphic design. He lives with his wife in Alexandria, Virginia.
Stamp Artist
Gregory Manchess
Painter Gregory Manchess has worked as a freelance illustrator for nearly forty years on advertising campaigns, magazines, and book covers. His work has appeared on covers and in feature stories for National Geographic magazine, TIME, The Atlantic Monthly, and Smithsonian Magazine.
Noting his passion for history, the National Geographic Society sent Manchess on an expedition to record the exploits of explorer, David Thomson. The Society also chose his work to illustrate the traveling exhibition, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of The Whydah, from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. His large portrait of Abraham Lincoln and seven other paintings of moments from Lincoln’s life are exhibited at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.
The artist has illustrated children’s books, including Nanuk: Lord of the Ice and Cheyenne Medicine Hat, written by Brian Heinz, and To Capture the Wind by author Sheila MacGill-Callahan.
Manchess is included in Walt Reed’s edition of The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000. Widely awarded within the industry, he exhibits frequently at the Society of Illustrators in New York. The Society presented him with its highest honor, the coveted Hamilton King Award.
Today, Manchess divides his time between New York and Kentucky, his native state. He lectures frequently at universities and colleges nationwide, gives painting workshops at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA, and teaches at the Illustration Master Class in Amherst, MA.
His figure and portrait work has led to numerous commissions for stamps by the U.S. Postal Service, including Oregon Statehood (2009), Mark Twain (2011), The 1963 March On Washington (2013), five paintings for Enjoy the Great Outdoors (2020), and ten for Snowy Beauty (2022).