[1] The festival attracted over 1,000 attendees to ten events over the span of two weeks at venues across Washington D.C.[2] Participants have included writers Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Kitty Kelley;[3] Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Taylor Branch, Gilbert King, Diane McWhorter, and Isabel Wilkerson,[4] journalists Eugene Robinson and Hank Klibanoff;[5] former U.S.
Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch; performers Diahann Carroll, Yara Shahidi, Carmen De Lavellade and 9th Wonder;[6] and prominent Civil Rights veterans Joyce and Dorie Ladner, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Julian Bond, Rev.
[11] The second night, A’lelia Bundles moderated a panel discussion that included Clarence Jones, Taylor Branch, Gilbert King and Diane McWhorter, and Michael Eric Dyson.
[18] High school and undergraduate students from around the country submitted writing samples for the chance to publish original work covering the film festival in various major news outlets.
[7] The Festival's Opening Night event was a Tribute to Sonia Sanchez, seminal figure of the 1960s Black Arts Movement, who has raised her voice as a poet, playwright, teacher, activist, early Spoken word artist and thought leader in African American culture for over half a century.
[20] The exhibit featured the work of the Spiral Group, a collective of famed artists including Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Hale Woodruff and Emma Amos among others.
[21] This year introduced the March on Washington Film Festival Inaugural Awards Gala, and honored Congresswoman Terri Sewell, Peggy Wallace Kennedy, and Dr. Joyce Ladner.
[21] Also in 2019, MOWFF commissioned an original production of music and dramatic readings, written and composed by Nolan Williams, Jr. on the little known Contested Congressional Election of Annie Devine, Fannie Lou Hamer and Victoria Gray.
Their challenge, supported by several white Members of Congress, caused a postponement of the Mississippi delegation's swearing-in, and prompted a year-long hearing in 1965 including depositions from Devine, Hamer and Gray.