250,000 March on Washington and Hear King's "Dream"
The largest civil rights demonstration the country had seen builds pressure for the stalled Civil Rights Act
Quick facts
- Location
- Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
- Attendance
- Estimated 250,000
- Organizers
- A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, the "Big Six"
What happened
A. Philip Randolph, the longtime labor and civil rights organizer, first proposed the march; its logistics were run by his associate Bayard Rustin, and its success depended on the "Big Six" civil rights leaders, including Randolph, King, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, and John Lewis of SNCC. An estimated 250,000 people, roughly 190,000 Black and 60,000 white, gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, demanding passage of civil rights legislation and an end to employment discrimination. Washington mobilized 5,900 police officers and 6,000 soldiers and National Guardsmen as a precaution; the National Park Service records that the crowd was calm throughout and police reported no incidents. King's closing speech, delivered from prepared remarks he departed from to improvise the "I have a dream" passage, invoked Lincoln and the country's unmet promise of freedom a century after emancipation.
Why it matters
The march put concentrated national and international attention on the stalled civil rights bill in Congress and gave King the platform that made him the movement's most recognized voice, though its organizers, particularly Randolph, had envisioned it as an economic justice demonstration as much as a civil rights one.
How we know
The National Park Service documents the march's crowd estimate, security arrangements, and program from the National Archives' preserved official march program and contemporary accounts.
Sources
- National Park Service. March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom · Primary source (author-declared)nps.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- National Archives. Official Program for the March on Washington (1963) · Primary source (author-declared)archives.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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