Cincinnati’s 1963 March and Vote for Jobs and Freedom

On Oct. 27,1963, thousands gathered in Cincinnati for a Civil Rights march, the timing of which was far from coincidental, falling just nine days before the city’s municipal elections were scheduled to take place.

Literature promoting the event called it the “March and Vote for Jobs and Freedom,” urging Black community members to use their anticipatedly pivotal vote in elections that November for City Council, the Board of Education and the Municipal Court. 

On that mid-autumn Sunday, marchers gathered at the city’s Washington Square around 1:30 p.m., making their way along Race Street, Sixth Street and Main Street, before arriving for the culmination of the march at Fountain Square around 2:30 p.m. 

There, Rev. Otis Moss, Jr., pastor of Mt. Zion Church in Lockland and local chairman of the Cincinnati Action Committee, addressed an estimated 25,000 people, some of whom had stood in that same spot just a month prior to join the public mourning for the four Black children who had been killed by a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

In addition to the attendees, more than 100 churches, civic groups, labor organizations and clubs expressed support for the march.

Bill Kagler, a writer from The Cincinnati Enquirer, emphasized the greater importance of the march as it related to changing political trends. In the paper’s Oct. 27, 1963, edition, Kagler noted that at the time, approximately 45,000 Black Cincinnatians were registered to vote. 

“Two years ago, it took 47,767 votes to win election to City Council,” he wrote. “It probably will take just about the same number to win this year.” 

Kagler pointed to political analysts who stressed that Black candidates, including the four running in the 1963 municipal election in Cincinnati, would need broader support to win.

With a presidential election looming just the following year and the trending direction of local elections in Cincinnati, analysts saw the Civil Rights march as part of a broader shift in the reshaping of politics on a national level.

“Regardless of the outcome, the results of 1963 will be evaluated with extreme care,” Kagler wrote in the same Oct. 27, 1963, edition of The Cincinnati Enquirer. “With a presidential contest on the ballot next year, and important countywide races tucked in beneath it, the political professionals will be looking for a sign of the direction the [Black] vote might take.” 

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