Sixty years ago, they converged on the National Mall from across the country, to demand their nation fulfill the promise of the American Dream for all.

Some arrived with intent, others by happenstance. They were college students and college dropouts, activists who organized in city offices and in sharecropping shacks, workers on Capitol Hill and at the post office.

An estimated 250,000 Americans in all arrived by bus, by train and on foot to participate in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Together, they forged a cornerstone moment in American history and in the struggle for African American equality that enslavement and Jim Crow had long denied.

[More than 1,800 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were.]

The March on Washington’s 60th anniversary arrives Monday, amid a rise in white nationalism, after George Floyd’s murder reignited protests and conversations about racism and inequality, and as the United States bitterly debates the teaching of the nation’s past.

“The only way you break the cycle,” said marcher Patricia Tyson, then 15 and now 75, “is to understand your history and talk about it.”

The Washington Post spent this summer interviewing participants in the March on Washington, including young civil rights soldiers, curious bystanders and behind-the-scenes leaders, as well as voices from ensuing generations. Together, their quotes below capture the story of Aug. 28, 1963, beyond Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech, and what that day means now.

The country then was less than 50 years removed from national women’s suffrage, less than a generation removed from the desegregation of the military and the national pastime, nine years removed from the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The march risked the civil rights movement’s viability at a crucial moment, when African Americans faced violent and deadly backlash from police and white supremacists for seeking voting protections and fair treatment in their own country.

“I think that people don’t really understand that the March on Washington wasn’t just a celebration. It really was a protest march,” said Aaron Bryant, a curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

To some, the march was radical and prompted fears of violence; to others, it wasn’t nearly radical enough. It was a political gambit to pressure Congress, with some demands that look familiar today: job training to “defeat unemployment and automation,” an increase in the federal minimum wage, and robust civil rights legislation that included public desegregation, protections for Black voting rights and “decent housing.”

Organizers were aided by a transformative bit of technology: the television.

[From 2013: President Obama, thousands celebrate 50th anniversary of March on Washington]

Few histories are complete, and this account cannot be, either. Memories can fade or reshape over the decades; the speakers and the older attendees that day are gone.

But this is not “ancient history,” Bryant said.

Here, 60 years later, is the March on Washington, in all its risks, conflicts and hopes — and a legacy that still lives.

Reporting by Keith L. Alexander, Tara Bahrampour, Lateshia Beachum, Timothy Bella, Michelle Boorstein, Gillian Brockell, DeNeen L. Brown, Hau Chu, Paul Duggan, Karina Elwood, Meagan Flynn, Rachel Hatzipanagos, Joe Heim, Samantha Latson, Lauren Lumpkin, Michael E. Ruane, Ellie Silverman, Sydney Trent and Clarence Williams.

Some quotes have been edited for clarity or length.

‘A war zone’ and a mission

Black labor giant A. Philip Randolph and civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin first prepared for a march on Washington in the early 1940s, to pressure President Franklin D. Roosevelt to end discrimination in wartime industry. They backed down after Roosevelt issued an executive order banning it.

But as civil rights leaders organized numerous demonstrations in the late ’50s, and as Jim Crow violence raged, their eyes remained trained on the nation’s capital.

Courtland Cox

Then: 22, march representative from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Now: 82, chair of the SNCC Legacy Project.

As we talk about the March on Washington, its historic significance can only be given in context.

A big change started happening, I would say, 20 years before 1963, because Black people who were veterans of World War II came back with what they called the Double V program: victory abroad and victory at home. They were not going to deal with fighting for “freedom overseas” and coming out here and being slapped and hung in military uniforms.

It’s hard 60 years later to talk about the kind of fear, but basically most Black people were in a war zone. For any reason, not only the police but any vigilante could engage in violence against a Black person.

Janus Adams

Then: 16, incoming college student who attended with her mom.

Now: 76, Emmy Award-winning journalist and historian.

Every night on the news was another assault. You were watching people brutalized by their own government while you ate dinner with Walter Cronkite.

Frank Smith

Then: 20, SNCC activist in Mississippi.

Now: 80, executive director of the African American Civil War Museum.

Sort of like today, being in the civil rights movement, your life revolved around tragedies.

Charles Neblett

Then: 22, founding member of the SNCC Freedom Singers.

Now: 82, activist and retired magistrate.

I was the same age as Emmett Till when he was killed [in 1955]. It was horrible, and I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do, and I was just depressed. I was amazed that anybody could come and kill me and literally get away with it.

Joyce Ladner

Then: 19, college student and activist.

Now: 79, sociologist, author and former interim president of Howard University.

Adult men were lynched, but this was the first time a child was dragged out of his home and had his eye gouged out. I coined the term “the Emmett Till Generation.” We all vowed, in one way or another, to avenge his death when we got older.

[Biden to establish national monument honoring Emmett Till]

Charles Neblett

It was about three or four months later that I saw King and Rosa Parks on TV. It was the first time I saw people publicly standing up for their rights, and it was like a weight lifted off me. There was an answer. There was a way out. I saw people risking going to jail and being lynched standing up. I said, “When I’m of age, I’ll be right there.”

E.T. Williams Jr.

Then: 25, Peace Corps staffer living in D.C.

Now: 85, retired New York City businessman and art collector.

We knew [activists] needed money, so we raised money for the sit-ins. And that’s how I got involved and then followed Dr. King.

Rachelle Horowitz

Then: 24, aide to Bayard Rustin and transportation coordinator for the march.

Now: 84, retired political director of the American Federation of Teachers.

Both Mr. Randolph and Bayard [Rustin] understood that the fight for civil rights had to be moved to Washington. It had to be federalized.

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Then: 26, SNCC organizer in New York.

Now: 86, D.C. delegate to the House of Representatives.

Of all places, the nation’s capital was a segregated city. I went to segregated public schools.

Courtland Cox

Most Americans [in 1963] had the view of the MAGA people today. I mean, let’s be real. They thought that Black people shouldn’t vote. They thought that women should be in their place. They thought that the LGBTQ community should be in jail.

William Vodra

Then: 19, intern to Rep. Frank T. Bow (R-Ohio).

Now: 79, retired law partner.

My job [had] me open the mail that was coming in every day. And so I was encountering tons of vicious, dehumanizing mail concerning African Americans — King in particular, but the whole civil rights movement.

I was basically a conservative Republican at that point in Washington: not quite as far right as [Barry] Goldwater, but close to it. And this mail was something I’d never encountered in my life.

Kathy Megyeri

Then: 20, college student from Minnesota.

Now: 80, retired schoolteacher living in D.C.

I was at [George Washington University] for summer school, because my parents thought I should be exposed to more than just this little farming community in Minnesota. It was my first real exposure to what was going on as far as civil rights and Blacks not being able to do all that I was doing. It was an eye-opener of a summer for me.

President John F. Kennedy, in a televised address in June 1963, pressed Congress to pass a bill that would protect voting rights and end segregation in public facilities.

“Now has come the time for this nation to fulfill its promise,” Kennedy said.

Rachelle Horowitz

[Civil rights leaders] were planning this march for jobs and thinking about who would sponsor it and what the slogans would be, and then the Birmingham demonstration started, Medgar Evers was assassinated, and it became clear that it had to be a march for jobs and freedom.

Underpinning everything was passage of the Kennedy civil rights bill.

[What Kennedy did to stop the violence in Birmingham in May 1963]

Virginia Ali

Then: 29, co-founder and owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl.

Now: 89, co-founder and owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl.

[King] had a little office on 14th Street, maybe down near 14th and T. On one of his visits to me that I remember so distinctly, he said, “We had a meeting with President Kennedy,” and he told me that young John Lewis was with him, A. Philip Randolph and a few other people.

And President Kennedy said: “Well, we understand that injustice, and we want to help you any way we can. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring a large group of people here. If there is an incident, Dr. King, it will set your movement back.” Dr. King said, “There will not be an incident.”

Courtland Cox

It was my responsibility to bring the most active and oppressed people to the march, because they’re the ones who had the most to gain — and, if you didn’t succeed, the most to lose.

Rachelle Horowitz

My job was to make sure that organizations that wanted a bus could charter them, that we had enough buses, that they met interstate commerce laws. We wrote out postcards, sent out mailings, made telephone calls.

[From 2013: Meet Bayard Rustin, the gay socialist pacifist who planned the 1963 March on Washington]

Courtland Cox

My feeling was if you have people in convoys, if you had people on trains, if you had people in buses, there was less likelihood of them to be brutalized than if they were traveling in a car.

You’re talking to people [for whom] bus fare was a week’s wages. Or even more. People who came from the South had to do a great deal of sacrificing plus run a gantlet of terror.

Gary Cohen

Then: 26, recent law school graduate.

Now: 86, practicing attorney and writer for legal publications.

Blacks were discriminated against in Nashville. Organizations that my family belonged to opposed that. The Jewish community was also discriminated against in a number of ways, and so there was some empathy there.

Frank Smith

In June of ’63, I’m in Greenwood, Mississippi, and I was there because one of our people got shot. Greenwood at that time was the most violent place I had ever been, and I really didn’t expect to get out of there alive.

For me go to Washington, D.C., in ’63 was R&R.

Ken Howard

Then: 18, D.C. student working at the post office.

Now: 78, operations director of the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program.

You heard about it on the radio. You heard about it in the newspapers. This was big news. Change was in the air, and you began to see increases in bus traffic, crowds, different kinds of people coming to town.

Clarence Jones

Then: 32, lawyer and speechwriter to Martin Luther King Jr.

Now: 92, scholar in residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.

The night before, I’m having this conversation with Harry Belafonte and Charlton Heston, because Charlton Heston was going to be the leader of the so-called celebrity delegation to the march. Harry talked to the organizers in advance about reserving a certain section of the stands [for the celebrities], because he knew the power of television, even to the point of where television audiences are most likely paying attention.

At center stage, though, would be the speakers, and at the 11th hour, the Kennedy administration and Archbishop of Washington Patrick O’Boyle — who was scheduled to give the march’s opening invocation — thrust the tenuous coalition into a difficult position.

Their concern: the speech of John Lewis, the future congressman who was then the determined 23-year-old representative of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Lewis planned to denounce the Kennedy civil rights bill for its insufficient protections against police brutality and to vow a “march through the South” to “burn Jim Crow to the ground — nonviolently.”

Courtland Cox

Archbishop O’Boyle came to us to tell us that there was this big problem with the Kennedys and the Catholic Church was going to pull out of the March on Washington if John didn’t change his speech.

[Lewis got a note from Rustin in his D.C. hotel room: ‘John, come downstairs. Must see you at once.’]

Raymond Kemp

Then: 22, seminary graduate.

Now: 82, Georgetown University adjunct professor and assistant for community engagement.

O’Boyle, as one of the conditions, wanted to see everyone else’s talks. O’Boyle got to Lewis’s talk and didn’t like his references, echoing [Union Gen. William Tecumseh] Sherman’s march. It didn’t exactly sound nonviolent.

William Vodra

We were all being told what to expect, which was essentially some sort of riot and violence. And we were assured that the Hill was going to be protected, that there were extra airborne troops, paratroopers at Bolling Air Force Base and Fort McNair and Fort Myer with jeeps that had barbed wire on the top so they could actually roll in some barricades in seconds.

Ken Howard

Some, unfortunately, considered us to be agitators. I guess, in a way, we were. Agitating for equality is never a bad thing.

Marching, listening and ‘showing America’

Aug. 28, 1963, dawned with uncertainty of what would unfold in Washington. The country that year had seen fire hoses and police dogs turned on civil rights protesters in Birmingham, whose state’s governor defiantly had declared, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Just weeks before the march, demonstrations in Cambridge, Md., devolved into rioting and exchanges of gunfire.

The future of the movement and American ideals would be tested under the late-summer sun.

Rachelle Horowitz

Then: 24, aide to Bayard Rustin and transportation coordinator for the march.

Now: 84, retired political director of the American Federation of Teachers.

We got to the working tent, and it was about 7 or 8 in the morning, and the Mall was empty. A bunch of reporters come over to Bayard and said, “Well, where is everybody?”

And Bayard picks up a foolscap pad and looks at it and says: “We’re right on schedule. We’re absolutely on schedule. People will be arriving any moment.” I said, “Bayard, what’s on the pad?” Nothing; he was just looking at a blank pad.

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Then: 26, SNCC organizer in New York.

Now: 86, D.C. delegate to the House of Representatives.

We were pretty doubtful about whether we would draw as many people as finally came, because of the unprecedented nature of this march.

[Police brutality, voting rights, racial justice: Echoes from 1963′s March on Washington]

Janus Adams

Then: 16, incoming college student who attended with her mom.

Now: 76, Emmy Award-winning journalist and historian.

[My mother and I left] the Bronx at 3 o’clock in the morning to get to Harlem at 4 in the morning to board a bus to go to the march. Our bus [was] surrounded at a rest stop on the Mason-Dixon Line by a White mob, thugs. The police were there to keep us from defending ourselves and allowing the mob to have their way with us.

The driver put his foot on the gas and forced them to get out of the way or get run over. The time for those being victimized to be “polite” was over.

Elizabeth Young

Then: 5, traveled with her parents from New York.

Now: 65, retired federal government worker.

We took the train. I remember that we brought lunches in little bags.

John Mangis

Then: 20, college student and Arlington resident.

Now: 80, retired U.S. government clerk and Foreign Service member.

We might have been the only people on a tandem bike going to the march.

Frank Smith

Then: 20, SNCC activist in Mississippi.

Now: 80, executive director of the African American Civil War Museum.

We marched about 2½ miles, from the SNCC office. We marched from Columbia Heights down 14th Street to get to the Mall.

If people saw us marching down the street, hey, man, some got in line with us. They knew something dynamic and good was happening.

Adele Logan Alexander

Then: 25, recent D.C. transplant attending with 1-year-old daughter.

Now: 85, former visiting professor of history and American studies at George Washington University.

You started seeing buses from all over the country that were bringing people to the march. You’d see “Nashville,” “Chicago” or “Detroit” on the front, and they were parked all up and down Fourth Street.

Courtland Cox

Then: 22, leading SNCC representative at the march.

Now: 82, chair of the SNCC Legacy Project.

You went from zero to 60,000 persons in a half-hour, and then another half-hour you got to 150,000.

[At 92, MLK’s speechwriter confronts a new ‘insane’ moment in U.S. history]

Janus Adams

[There] are people who walked to D.C., because, no matter what, they were going to get there. And they did not have the money. They did not have the wherewithal. They slept by the side of the road. That was the level of determination.

The swelling crowd rallied at the Washington Monument, before a planned march down Constitution and Independence avenues to the Lincoln Memorial.

Eleanor Holmes Norton

When I looked [out the plane window] and couldn’t see the ground, because all I could see was people, it was clear to me that the march was going to be a success.

William Vodra

Then: 19, intern to Rep. Frank T. Bow (R-Ohio).

Now: 79, retired law partner.

There were uniformed police or military personnel every six feet. The military people had rifles slung on their shoulders. The police were in what at that time was riot gear. So, as a naive, invulnerable 19-year-old kid, I went down to the march primarily out of curiosity, to see what this was going to look like and how it was going to go down.

But when I got down to the monument and they were handing out the signs — you’ve seen them: “March for Jobs and Freedom” — what I encountered was a population I didn’t expect. These were older people: 40s, 50s, 60s. The men were all in suits and ties, and many wore fedoras. The women were dressed for Sunday service, and people were then marching down toward the Lincoln Memorial. So I grabbed a sign and walked on down with the crowd.

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Charles Neblett

Then: 22, founding member of the SNCC Freedom Singers.

Now: 82, activist and retired magistrate.

It was the largest audience I had ever seen in my life. And to see all those people there? You know, Black people, Chinese, White people, everybody.

Adele Logan Alexander

Lots and lots of union signs, lots and lots of teachers from New York, teachers from Charlotte, North Carolina, from all over.

Charles Neblett

It was like we had just been fighting by ourselves. But it was just so many people out there, and people were so enthusiastic. I mean, wow. It was powerful.

Joyce Ladner

Then: 19, college student and activist.

Now: 79, sociologist, author and former interim president of Howard University.

We had two stages set up. The first stage was for [a pre-show with] entertainers. Bobby Dylan; Peter, Paul and Mary; Pete Seeger; Joan Baez; [and] the SNCC Freedom Singers were among those who performed on the first stage.

Courtland Cox

There was a big issue about how the march would start, where, the timing of the starting of the march and making sure that all the leaders were together.

Eleanor Holmes Norton

The crowd was very disciplined but anxious to march. They grew restless.

And so the crowd began to march, with signs reading “We demand jobs for all now!” and “We demand voting rights now!” — and without many of the movement’s leaders, who were coming from Capitol Hill and scrambled to catch up.

At the Lincoln Memorial, the monument honoring the president who issued the Emancipation Proclamation a century before, the speaking program soon would begin.

Lewis’s speech had been lightly edited, but its tone remained too sharp for NAACP chief Roy Wilkins, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Eugene Carson Blake of the National Council of Churches.

Courtland Cox

Bayard brought A. Philip Randolph to us, and Randolph pointed out that this is something that had been in the works for over 20 years, to begin to deal with the discrimination in the United States and make a big statement about it. And he would really appreciate it if we made the changes.

So John Lewis, Jim Forman, myself were in the backstage making changes to John Lewis’s speech so that it would not be disruptive to the March on Washington.

[Who was A. Philip Randolph?]

Raymond Kemp

Then: 22, seminary graduate.

Now: 82, Georgetown University adjunct professor and assistant for community engagement.

The role of the faith groups was well represented on the dais. Everybody’s coming out of a church. The Black church and the White churches didn’t really know each other until that march. The amazing thing for me was that they all got together.

Adele Logan Alexander

The crowds were huge. People thick around you.

Elizabeth Young

I remember — actually, clearly remember — seeing the Lincoln Memorial, and I know my dad helped me up on his shoulders.

E.T. Williams Jr.

Then: 25, Peace Corps staffer living in D.C.

Now: 85, retired New York City businessman and art collector.

I angled my way to be as close to [King] as possible. I wasn’t part of the elite. [Yet] I was part of the people who were in front, like Whitney Young, Mahalia Jackson, Sammy Davis Jr., Dorothy Height. I guess I looked important. I had a shirt and tie on. So I was right up there.

William Vodra

Off to one side, a woman collapsed from the heat. Immediately the crowd opened up to create an air space. Some people got down and were fanning her. Nobody was carrying water bottles like today, but somehow they got water. And it just struck me that this was anything but a mob bent on destruction; this was a people engaged in a very civilized, peaceful protest.

[America’s nonviolent civil rights movement was considered uncivil by critics at the time]

Patricia Tyson

Then: 15, D.C. student.

Now: 75, retired Service Employees International Union employee.

We were showing America we were Americans, too.

Gary Cohen

Then: 26, recent law school graduate.

Now: 86, practicing attorney and writer for legal publications.

We couldn’t really hear the speeches. There was something wrong with the audio. We were very frustrated about that.

The 10 organizations that sponsored the march spanned civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the National Urban League; religious groups; and the United Auto Workers.

The chairs of the March on Washington, though, shared a commonality: All were men.

Rachelle Horowitz

The march is criticized for not having a woman speaker. In retrospect, it was a big problem.

Aaron Bryant

Curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Women were the ones going out knocking on the doors, mobilizing communities in local levels. When you think about some of those pivotal moments in the civil rights movement, women, if they weren’t at the forefront, they certainly were at the center.

[From 2020: Gloria Richardson wants the new generation to fight on]

James Boardley

Then: 20, student civil rights activist.

Now: 80, former investigator and director of the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

[Cambridge protests leader] Gloria [Richardson] said good morning, and then they cut the mics.

Eleanor Holmes Norton

[Dorothy Height,] the leader of the National Council of Negro Women, was not allowed to speak.

Courtland Cox

At the end of the day, the march reflected where America was in terms of men and women.

Lewis’s speech followed Blake’s, and it began fiercely. “We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of,” he said, “for hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here, for they are receiving starvation wages, or no wages at all.”

Edited back, he voiced support for the Kennedy bill, albeit “with great reservations,” urging it go further to protect Black voting rights in the South.

Joyce Ladner

When our members in the audience learned he changed it, we were pissed off. I was on the podium when all this was going on; I had a staff pass.

Our position was they hadn’t spent a day in Mississippi and hadn’t been arrested. They hadn’t spent time giving comfort to a family whose house had been torched. They had no moral authority to dictate to us which words would come out of John’s mouth. He was speaking from experience.

Courtland Cox

[Lewis talked about] the SNCC workers and the movement workers in the South who were being put in jail, who were being threatened with death, people were being beaten.

Raymond Kemp

The reason why the union presence was so great was that unions, along with many other institutions, were still racially controlled. They had racist hiring practices, and a lot of people got the race part, but not the economics. And Lewis was pretty clear about that.

Rachelle Horowitz

Bayard Rustin had a theory that every demonstration had to have three kinds of demands. Ones you could pass immediately, one that was in the near future and one that thrust the movement ahead.

So obviously the ones that were immediate were the civil rights bill. The other ones were the economic demands, things he thought would come in the future. And, ultimately, he believed that the movement had to deal more with economics.

Aaron Bryant

When you read their speeches, there was a radicalism that was happening, even in the time of respectability.

Rachelle Horowitz

Dr. King, as Bayard said, [was] one of the few Black leaders that could speak simultaneously to White people and Black people.

William Vodra

To my chagrin, after listening to the speeches for an hour, hour and a half, I got very bored, and it was super hot. So I left before King’s great speech.

Charles Neblett

Everybody was waiting on King.

Geneva Green

Then: 13, D.C. student.

Now: 73, executive assistant.

When Martin Luther King started speaking, there was a hush over the crowd, and we as children could not figure out what was going on. But we stood there, and we listened, and we watched the looks on the people’s faces as they looked toward him and were listening to what he was saying.

Frank Smith

He was not only a master orator; he was smart enough to draw people into his speech. He said that “some of you are fresh from Mississippi jails,” and a big roar went up from all of us, including me. We were in the house.

E.T. Williams Jr.

I will always remember when Mahalia Jackson said, “Martin, tell ’em about the dream, tell ’em about the dream.”

James Boardley

When Mahalia told him that, as in Baptist churches, King went with the flow. The call and response.

Rachelle Horowitz

A preacher is a little bit like a politician. They have a stump speech. [King] had done the dream section in Detroit and other places, and he was doing it on the podium.

Martin Luther King III

Then: 5, son of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

Now: 65, chairman of the Drum Major Institute and former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

He specifically used an example, of course, of his four little children living in a world where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. And I think clearly, while he was talking about us, he really was talking about the children of everyone.

Janus Adams

That dream isn’t for White America to feel good about itself. It’s for Black America, who came through hell to get there that day. That is why Mahalia Jackson is egging King on, because she knows what people are going back to. He was giving us something to be able to nourish our spirit and souls to keep going.

Rachelle Horowitz

When we listened to the speech, we didn’t think at that point that the “I have a dream” part was the really big section. We thought the party ended with “free at last, free at last, great God almighty, free at last.”

Janus Adams

It’s little wonder that J. Edgar Hoover called this Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. King the most dangerous man in America. We were all dangerous that day. It was dangerous to face down the doctrine of white supremacy.

But not all elements of the civil rights movement saw it as a such an achievement.

Joyce Ladner

We went back to the hotel, and there in the lobby was Malcolm X. He called it a “Farce on Washington,” and he said something to the effect that when we Black people get off our knees, bowing down between two dead White men — Lincoln on one end and Washington on the other — we will really get our freedom.

[Reporters] were putting him in opposition to King. I remember standing there wondering which of these two men had the solution. I think I went away agreeing more with King, because I couldn’t see how we could wage a war with the White people of the South without being slaughtered.

Frank Smith

[The march] enabled me to go back and recommit myself to stand down there, for another four or five years.

Joyce Ladner

What I remember feeling that day: We are finally not just a Southern movement anymore. It was a national movement.

For a moment, ‘we won’

The marchers scattered back across a country that was headed in new directions: toward hoped-for breakthroughs on civil rights, toward a controversial war in Vietnam, toward more militant forms of protest and toward assassinations that would shake the nation’s foundation.

They marched, through the ’60s, toward personal and societal change.

Martin Luther King III

Then: 5, son of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

Now: 65, chairman of the Drum Major Institute and former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

When my mom and dad arrived back home, their expressions, the talk in the house — there were people who would visit, and whether you know or not, you can subconsciously understand energy. It was energetic.

Frank Smith

Then: 20, SNCC activist in Mississippi.

Now: 80, executive director of the African American Civil War Museum.

I think not just the nation but the world saw for the first time that there was a very large number of people, including some very powerful organizations like labor unions, the churches, who believed in the civil rights movement; they believe that those words that talk about all men being created equal have meaning and that America had to do something about this.

William Vodra

Then: 19, intern to Rep. Frank T. Bow (R-Ohio).

Now: 79, retired law partner.

I went home from Washington no longer a Goldwater Republican, and I’ve been a social liberal for most of my life. It opened my eyes.

James Boardley

Then: 20, student civil rights activist.

Now: 80, former investigator and director of the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

I didn’t have any children then, but I wanted my grandchildren to see what we had done and be able to grow up in a society that wasn’t race-based.

Patricia Tyson

Then: 15, D.C. student.

Now: 75, retired Service Employees International Union employee.

The march was like a steppingstone. It took me to SNCC. It took me to Resurrection City. It took me to build low-income housing in Alabama, fighting for tenants’ rights, fighting for women’s rights, fighting for LGBTQ rights, fighting for abortion rights, for reproductive health.

[MLK gave his last sermon 55 years ago — and warned of a fascist takeover]

Courtland Cox

Then: 22, leading SNCC representative at the march.

Now: 82, chair of the SNCC Legacy Project.

It was a high point, highly visible, just like the Selma-to-Montgomery march.

Rachelle Horowitz

Then: 24, aide to Bayard Rustin and transportation coordinator for the march.

Now: 84, retired political director of the American Federation of Teachers.

The problem was that people went home, especially to the South, and a few weeks later was the Birmingham bombing, where the four little girls were killed, and reality set in.

Elizabeth Young

Then: 5, traveled with her parents from New York.

Now: 65, retired federal government worker.

Only a few months later, Kennedy was assassinated.

Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, muscled ahead with action on civil rights, tying it to Kennedy’s legacy.

The final version, which Johnson signed on July 2, 1964 — less than a year after the March on Washington — outlawed segregation in public places, such as schools and swimming pools, as well as in businesses, such as hotels and restaurants. True to the march’s demands for economic justice, it also banned discriminatory practices in employment.

The Voting Rights Act, the following year, outlawed poll taxes and literacy tests, both of which disproportionately targeted Black voters. Another landmark bill, in 1968, prohibited discrimination in renting and home buying.

Martin Luther King III

And so, even though there were great losses, there were also great gains.

Walter Naegle

73, artist and Bayard Rustin’s surviving partner

Some of the major things that they set out to accomplish during the march, they were accomplished. I mean, we won. And that’s a reason to celebrate.

Aaron Bryant

Curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture

It was an important model that showed us what was possible, that change was possible on a national level.

Martin Luther King III

Then, of course, in ’65 Malcolm X was killed. And ’68, Dad and Robert Kennedy. So we lost all these very powerful leaders who represented progress for our nation.

Virginia Ali

Then: 29, co-founder and owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl.

Now: 89, co-founder and owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl.

When the news came out that Dr. King had died, someone just rushes into the door to the Chili Bowl that evening and said, “Dr. King has been shot.” We don’t even believe that — can’t be true — and then someone else comes in, and somebody else, and then finally someone comes over the little transistor radio: “Now he has passed on.” People were crying openly, just really broken up. And then I guess frustration set in and then anger, and the uprising began.

[The four days in 1968 that reshaped D.C.]

Raymond Kemp

Then: 22, seminary graduate.

Now: 82, Georgetown University adjunct professor and assistant for community engagement.

People saw it as riots or civil disturbances. Retrospectively, I saw it as what happens when a people had been crushed for a couple of centuries. There’s an explosion.

Aaron Bryant

You had one group coming out of the 1950s dealing with civil rights issues, but then you have a younger generation — represented by people like John Lewis, for example — who had very different ideas about how to bring about social change.

I think the March on Washington becomes that point that connects those very different kinds of generations and how they addressed the idea of demanding democracy.

‘Now you’ve got to make it better’

In the decades since, some African Americans have achieved high office, some have achieved higher tax brackets and a growing number have achieved higher education. But marchers lament how many remain stripped of access to the American Dream.

So generations have returned to the National Mall, following the March on Washington’s enduring model. They have demanded racial equity, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and more. They carry, today, signs with different names: Floyd and Taylor, rather than Evers and Till.

Courtland Cox

Then: 22, leading SNCC representative at the march.

Now: 82, chair of the SNCC Legacy Project.

America loves to reduce stuff, you know. And one of the things people like to say, when we’re talking about the civil rights movement, is Rosa Parks sat down, Martin King stood up, and everything was good after that. It gets reduced in absurdum.

Yolanda Renee King

15, activist and daughter of Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King.

We would learn about it in school. I always see posters or quotes of his “I Have a Dream” speech. You would always see those quotes everywhere.

Janus Adams

Then: 16, incoming college student who attended with her mom.

Now: 76, Emmy Award-winning journalist and historian.

King’s been soft-pedaled into a cuddly bear, but he is a warrior who put his life on the line, and his life was taken. And the lives of others were taken.

Ken Howard

Then: 18, D.C. student working at the post office.

Now: 78, operations director of the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program.

The march was hope for change for tomorrow, and it was one of the pieces of the foundation that did make a difference, to some degree. But today we’re still fighting the same battles, just like we naively thought when [Barack] Obama got elected, “That means we’ve turned a corner.” It’s only gotten worse.

Walter Naegle

73, artist and Bayard Rustin’s surviving partner

The things that haven’t changed are the much more ingrained social and economic problems.

Charles Neblett

Then: 22, founding member of the SNCC Freedom Singers.

Now: 82, activist and retired magistrate.

How much progress have we made when most of the jails are full of Black folk?

Sondra Hassan

Then: 17, D.C. student and SNCC activist.

Now: 77, quilter.

It’s like we have really moved backwards, with the Supreme Court decisions about affirmative action and such.

Martin Luther King III

Then: 5, son of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

Now: 65, chairman of the Drum Major Institute and former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The Voting Rights Act has been eviscerated, starting in 2013.

Justin Pearson

28, Tennessee state representative.

You have states like Tennessee and Georgia and others that are moving polling locations, that are putting restrictions on who can vote. One out of five Black people in the state of Tennessee are denied the right to vote due to felon disenfranchisement.

We are seeing our freedoms consistently eroded as Black Americans, and we are seeing that codified in legislation being passed in these supermajority Republican legislatures. And that’s what I think people have to realize.

[‘The Justins’ seem like civil rights-era throwbacks. But 2023 isn’t 1968.]

Joyce Ladner

Then: 19, college student and activist.

Now: 79, sociologist, author and former interim president of Howard University.

It makes me angry — all the bloodshed and all the sacrifices made to get the vote, and that is being taken from us now.

We don’t have as many allies in Congress as we had in the ’60s. Back then, you could appeal to people’s morality.

Yolanda Renee King

I was born in 2008, and my mom says that I was born with more rights than I have now because of all the pushback and all the legislation. I mean, we saw it last year with the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Then: 26, SNCC organizer in New York.

Now: 86, D.C. delegate to the House of Representatives.

There are some bills, particularly in the South, about how you teach about African Americans and the like. But I don’t think this mars the progress we have attained on relations between Blacks and Whites. I think that’s mostly political.

Courtland Cox

The Black middle class has expanded tremendously. We opened the gates. Black people are now astronauts. Where no progress has really been made is if you’re both Black and poor.

Justin Pearson

We’re still marching about economic justice and freedom. The freedom to read the books that you want to, the freedom to learn about your history and your culture, the freedom to be who you are as a person, whether you be queer or not queer, whether you be trans or not trans. We’re still talking about the freedom to live in America without the worry about police brutality and the violence that is there.

Adele Logan Alexander

Then: 25, recent D.C. transplant attending with 1-year-old daughter.

Now: 85, former visiting professor of history and American studies at George Washington University.

I’d love to think that it’s an aberration, what we’re going through now, in so many ways, but Martin Luther King’s arc of justice, I very often question it nowadays. I really do. And it scares the hell out of me. It goes much beyond race in my mind. It’s about all kinds of inequalities and how tenacious inequality is.

Walter Naegle

The anniversary of the march that’s coming up, the 60th, it doesn’t have the same kind of sheen or brilliance that the 50th does. But maybe this is the time to concentrate more on what the march originally hoped to accomplish and look at the work that still needs to be done.

Janus Adams

My grandfather took his daughters to march against lynching. My mother took me to march on Washington. My daughter took my granddaughter to march for Trayvon [Martin]. As a people, we take our children where we must.

Justin Pearson

There’s this intersectional understanding of justice that I really believe is growing and burgeoning now in this generation and in the understanding of a lot of people, post-Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and George Floyd’s lynching, that we really have to understand and grapple with and put our energy and our efforts towards solving locally, at the state level and nationally.

Virginia Ali

Then: 29, co-founder and owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl.

Now: 89, co-founder and owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl.

I tell people our city is now inhabited by young, educated people. That means you got energy. Now you’ve got to make it better.

You are the ones to do it. We did the best we could. Now it’s your turn.