nstration on August 28, 1963, was
larger than any previous one in the history of the capital. At least a
quarter of a million blacks and whites, from all over America,
representing a wide spectrum of religious, labor, and civil rights
organizations, flooded into Washington.

The occasion was peaceful and orderly. The marchers exuded an aura of
interracial love and brotherhood. The emotional impact on the
participants was almost that of a religious pilgrimage. President
Kennedy, instead of trying to block the march as demanded by many
Congressional leaders, aided it by providing security forces, and he also
met Personally with a delegation of its leaders. The high point of the
demonstration was Martin Luther King's famous speech:

"Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy. Now is the time
to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit
path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the
quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is
the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

"Now, I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the
difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream
deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this
nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit
down together at the table of brotherhood.

"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state
sweltering with the people's injustice, sweltering with the heat of
oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and Justice. 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.

"This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South
with--with this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of
despair a stone of hope."

In November, Congressional debate on the Civil Rights Bill was still
continuing, but the President had now made the passage of the Civil
Rights Bill one of the most urgent goals of his Administration. But on
the 22nd of November, John F. Kennedy was gunned down in the Presidential
limousine in Dallas