March on Washington August, 1963

Dr. King and those who worked and struggled in the movement with him planned a major March on Washington to be scheduled on August 28, 1963. Entertainers and speakers

joined him as well as a crowd of people estimated between
200,000 and 300,000.

When Dr. King, with the stirring rhetoric of a Baptist preacher, took the platform on Washington Monument, he mesmerized the crowd with his 17 minute speech which was destined to be remembered for years and years. It became famous as the "I Have a Dream Speech". One of its most famous lines was: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character".

There was no stopping the movement or the rhetoric of this man. This speech and the March was widely credited with helping pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the National Voting Rights Act in 1965. President Kennedy and President Johnson both realized that things could not go on as usual. There was a voice in the land which would not be stilled!